


I’ll Invite You To Stay, If You Can Take Away The Pain

by tamethewoods



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, M/M, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn, Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve Harrington-centric, Steve Harrington’s mental decline, Stranger Things 2, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, The Quarry (Stranger Things), Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24575179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamethewoods/pseuds/tamethewoods
Summary: “He was too afraid to be himself - goofy, smart, and softhearted - couldn’t afford the social toll it would take on him. Hargrove seemed to see right through him day one, though. Took one look at his cleverly covered crumbling self-esteem and picked him apart piece by piece.If these rocks decided to give way under him right now, he wasn’t going to object.”ORSteve sits on the ledge of the quarry, contemplating death.Then, Billy happens upon him, mouth fuming with foam and on a rager, and they spit fire with no heat.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & Steve Harrington's Father, Steve Harrington & Steve Harrington's Parents
Comments: 93
Kudos: 614
Collections: Mad Wet Rat Boy and Fluffy haired Doofus





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hiii everybody! This is my first Stranger Things story, and I’m so pumped about it. Hopefully my writing skills can keep up with the wild expectations I’ve got in my head. We’ll see. :)
> 
> I’ve decided to add the dates to the beginnings of chapters and as days change - I wrote the first two chapters without dates and it was just too confusing. 
> 
> Title is inspired by Gnash’s ‘the broken hearts club’, which is a total banger. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! :))

_Friday September 7, 1984_   
  


Steve sat.  


That’s all, he just sat and waited, thin legs dangling off the cliff and quietly swaying with the breeze.

Waited for a strong gust of wind to blow him off this ledge to a watery death. All of his bones would shatter on impact, and his body would sink to the bottom and that’d be the end of him. 

The dark clouds looming over him seemed to reflect his face, bruised black from another run-in with his father.

It didn’t matter though, anymore.

It’d been a hell of a week for him.

Thoughts of Nancy trailed through his brain, like ants slinking towards a picnic. She spent all her time with Jonathan now, living right through the lie of loving Steve. Maybe she did love him, he didn’t know. She didn’t show it, if she did.

He wasn’t going to jump, not really. Too coward. His God Complex was superficial, but everyone at high school was too dumb to see through it. Naïve enough to believe that he really loved keg stands and yelling obscenities at girls. But, he wanted to just sit here and think, for a moment, he had control. He was tired of sitting in the backseat of his own life. 

_ He was tired.  _ Tired of other’s expectations controlling him. He felt like a puppet on strings, doing whatever everyone else said. 

Nobody saw the bags under his eyes, the shake of his hands – he didn’t let them.

A sick part of him relished the persona he gave off, wishing he really could be like that – brash, greedy and prideful, taking everything he wanted and treating others like shit – wishing it was effortless to be as malicious as others thought him to be.

The only person without the ‘King Steve’ googles was that bastard Hargrove.

He was too afraid to be himself – goofy, smart, and softhearted - couldn’t afford the social toll it would take on him. Hargrove seemed to see right through him day one, though. Took one look at his cleverly covered crumbling self-esteem and picked him apart piece by piece. 

If these rocks decided to give way under him right now, he wasn’t going to object.

He had to think about college applications too. Although he’d only just started his senior year, his father was already looking to get him out of the house, which was  _ also _ ironic because his father was never home in the first place. Maybe he thought he was doing Steve a favor, by setting him up with everything money could buy and sending him away. Steve didn’t know what he wanted to be - he didn’t even know if he  _ wanted _ to leave Hawkins. They had that new mall ready to be finished, and he wouldn’t mind getting a job there, working towards an apartment. 

But, he knew that as long as he stayed in Hawkins, he had to keep putting up his front -  _ sunglasses on, cocky smile, skip in his step and slap that girl’s ass _ \- which made him exhausted even thinking about it. 

Too lost in thought, he suddenly jerked alert to the noise of chainsaw on metal. He squints. A car, tearing down the dirt road, screams toward him. Or the quarry, rather. Steve doubted this person knew he was here.

_‘A muscle car, maybe’_ he thought to himself, wiping his hands on his jeans. If it wasn’t jacked to shit, why would it be making such a fucking racket?

The car swerved to park, kicking up a dust storm that would only belong in Indiana. The person launched out of the car, kicking a tire and slamming both fists on the hood. Steve squinted again; he couldn’t see who it was from this far away, but he definitely recognized that damn car now.

Unperturbed, Steve watched him slam his door and stomp closer, still unseeing, kicking at the dirt and cussing up phrases that would impress even the hardest of sailors. He was close enough now for Steve to see his red face, veins through his neck. He let out a bellowing yell across the lake, permeating the rather quiet atmosphere.

Steve snickered, small and condescending-like, because  _ ‘what a drama queen’. _

His head whipped to the side, fire in his eyes as they landed on Steve’s slumped form, legs dangling. A venomous smile spread across his perfect teeth, hands forming fists as if he’d just found another way – another person, Steve – to take his anger out on.

“What the fuck are you doin’, Harrington?” He shouted with a hoarse voice, sauntering towards him.

“Get away from me, Hargrove.” Steve wanted to spit, to jump up and throw his fists. But he couldn’t. He could feel the exhaustion in his bones, settled in his brain weeks ago, murky and sluggish.

“That’s the answer you’re gonna give me? I should have your fucking head on a platter.” He growled.

“Yeah, well, here I am.”

“You’re not gonna put up?”

Steve didn’t answer, just looked back out at the water, dull jagged rocks of limestone running parallel lines down to the murk. 

Billy lurched, grabbing Steve’s collar and yanking his face sideways, noses almost colliding. Both were silent. Billy huffed forcefully, then tossed his head to the side. He saw it coming and swerved back easily, grabbing the rocks underneath him to steady himself. 

“Pussy,” Billy spat, kicking dirt at him. The miniscule rocks hit the side of Steve’s denim jacket and bounced harmlessly off. He heard Billy thump down, hard, on the dirt, a little ways from the edge. Maybe he wasn’t as risky as Steve was.

“Who pissed in your wheaties this morning?” Steve muttered.

No response.

They sat in silence for a while, wind roaring through their ears and down the quarry, creating a quiet  _ whistle  _ that seemed to reverberate throughout Hawkins.

Hargrove’s presence stayed in the back of his mind like a mustard stain. All his anger seemed to have dissipated the moment his ass hit the dirt in defeat - but the silence didn’t bother Steve. The last few weeks, he’s preferred it.

The person he hated most in all of Hawkins, in all of Indiana probably, was sitting silent, just a few feet away from him, and Steve was too tired to even feel weary about him today. 

“Why’re you here, anyways?  King Steve got the shit beat outta him and now he’s hiding?” Billy sneered, nose scrunched. Why  was he here, with his feet dangling off the edge of this cliff? His parents. His friends. His college applications. The fucking demogorgons. The fake façade he plays. Nancy.

“My parents are home for the weekend,” Steve chalked it up, as if that explained everything. Apparently, to Billy, it did. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything for so long that Steve glanced over to him. His blue eyes seemed to reflect the sky, dark and stormy, despite it only being seven in the evening. He eyed Steve’s blackened eye, knowing, then threw his eyes to the distance, silent.

Hargrove was close enough for Steve to see his eyes. They were ice blue orbs of emotion, swirling with anger and hatred and whatever else he felt that Steve would never know.

Steve’s dull brown eyes couldn’t compete. It was an embarrassingly sore spot for him; both his parent’s blue eyes shone like crystals. His brown ones just seemed to reinforce the burning knowledge he carried with him, the knowing that he’d never measure up. It was a ridiculous thing to feel guilty for, especially when he couldn’t change their color, but every time he looked into his father’s cold irises, it was just a reminder of his shortcomings.

It was like when his father was lecturing him, just the look of Steve’s disappointing brown pools was enough to send him into a full-on rampage. 

Needless to say, Steve had learned and mastered the art of supergluing chinaware back together. 

“You’re staring, pretty boy.” Hargrove mumbled, not taking his eyes off the horizon. Steve whipped his eyes away, too fast that his head spun. He tried to think of a smart ass remark, but his brain was too busy thinking about ice. The wind picked up, harsh for a moment, stinging his eyes.

He was  _so tired_.  So painfully tired that he could feel it all the way down to his toes, quiet labored breaths from the indentations of a boot on his ribs.

Against his will, his small giggle turned into a full-blown belly laugh, him gripping the bruise in pain. Billy eyed him warily. 

“Are you drunk?”

He scoffed, quieting down. “I wish.”

“Are you gonna jump?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s why you’re sitting on the edge of this shithole, just waiting for someone to come push you?” Hargrove snorted accusingly.

“You’d be doing me a favor,” Steve spat, but the sarcasm didn’t quite hit right, too quiet, almost asking. The expression on Billy’s face was unreadable as he stared at Steve, wiping his nose.

“What’re  you doing up here?” Thunder sounded throughout the sky, low and deep, teasing rain. Billy grunted roughly, not responding.

“You tore out here like a bat out of hell,” Steve tried. “You got shitty parents too?” Hargrove eyed him, but that was all the answer Steve needed. “We both know you wouldn’t come all the way out here with the storm threatening to get your hair wet unless something had really happened.”

“Shut the fuck up, Harrington, you don’t know nothin’.”

A ghost of a smile stretched across Steve’s lips. “I know that it’s gonna rain.” As if on cue, lightning shot across the sky, highlighting the dark features of Hargrove’s face for half a second, accentuating the sharp draw of his jaw and shining through his curls.

“Yeah well, I know you look like shit,” Hargrove told him. Steve reached up to lightly grasp his nose and grunted as he felt the misshapen bones across the bridge. He’d have to have Tommy wrench it back later, after he’d taken 2 rounds of tequila and some smokes.

“Ah, shit,” Steve deadpanned, wiping the crusted blood on his jeans. “Not the money maker.”

“Don’t be a bitch. I’ve got daddy issues up the fuckin’ wazoo, but you don’t hear me barkin’ about it.”

“You’re a real asshole, Hargrove.”

Billy winked back.

They sat in another silence, wind rumpling their clothing. The air bit through his canvas shoes that swung around and stung the slice across his nose, but he was too fatigued to do anything about it.

_ ‘If you’d slide your ass a few inches, it could all be over-‘ _

“What a way to spend a  Friday night, huh?” Steve mumbled, more to himself than Hargrove. And it was – a stupid way to spend his night. Maybe he should just take some pills and be done with it.

“Where’s your bitch Wheeler?” There was no heat behind his words.

“Hey,” Steve mumbled again. “Don’t call her that.” After a pause. “Probably with Byers.” Another pause. “Where’s all your whores?”

“Lonely.”

“Hmm,” Steve hummed, numb to the core. The clouds moved in and settled above them, black and luminous. Steve looked up – he would have assumed it was a twister, but knew there hadn’t been any sort of updraft happening. He waited, expecting to feel the beginnings of mist that usually indicated a storm, but after a few minutes of him sitting tight, nothing.

“I was supposed to be home like, four hours ago.” Steve stated quietly against the wind. Billy’s glance landed on him again. He excepted some sort of snarky comment, but nothing came. Maybe Steve’s brain was too vulnerable, too raw, because he couldn’t stop. “Doesn’t matter, right? He can’t do any worse to me than he already has.” His tone was light, but the atmosphere heavy. 

Billy sighed after a second, composure looking almost as defeated as his own. “Go home, pretty boy.”

Steve stood, slowly, stretching out his limbs as he backed away from the ledge, side eyeing Hargrove’s left arm. Now that he was safely on solid ground, he didn’t want any ‘accidents’ to occur. 

If he was going to die,  _ when _ he was going to die, it wouldn’t be in the quarry and it wouldn’t be today. 

He walked down the rocky path that led to his car parked behind the quarry, silently convincing himself that he wasn’t leaving because Hargrove just told him to - that he was in control. Fumbling with his keys, he turned to look at Billy as he yanked open his door. He was staring off into the horizon, blue tee flapping softly with the storm’s breeze. The first drops of rain hit his windshield with a  _ plunk  _ as he peeled off the property. 

It was only after he’d pulled onto the top of Carlton Road, in the middle of a heavy rainstorm, that he realized Hargrove had called him ‘pretty boy’ more than once. 

xxx


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve discovers he has to work for his title and still hates Billy Hargrove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye to my free time, hello to run-on sentences! ;)

_Monday September 10, 1984_

Steve didn’t much care for school. 

Everybody thought he did, but it was just another filler in his life that provided a distraction. As long as he held his position as ‘top of the food chain’, he tolerated it.

Tommy sat at the cafeteria table next to him, eyeing the pudding cup on his tray. He slid it over wordlessly. Tommy did a fist pump in the air, then stole Carol’s spoon as she animatedly gossiped with her sister. Something about ‘ _holy shit, did you see Clyde’s new girlfriend? I haven’t been interested in him in years, but she looks like a fuckin’ horse-‘_

He rolled his peas around on his tray as scornful as possible. _Math to language, language to practice, then home_ \- it was like a mantra he repeated in his head, every day at lunch. Luckily, he was the later lunch period that only had 2 remaining classes instead of 3. 

_‘The perks of being a senior’,_ he guessed haughtily. 

“Who kicked _you_ in the kahunas today?” Tommy grumbled, slurping down the last of the pudding. Steve shot him an angry glance, hooded eyes and all. 

“Shut up, Tommy.” He mumbled. “I’m fine.” Truth was, he knew exactly what was wrong with his mood. It was a Monday, which meant his parents had been home all weekend, patronizing and belittling him, even with a simple glance. 

‘ _Are you working on your schoolwork, son?’_

_‘Yes, dad.’_

_‘Are you?’_

_‘Yes!’_

_‘Ms. Burton called me this morning. She said your English exam last week didn’t go well.’_

_‘I did alright.’_

_‘A 78 is not alright, Steven! We expect better from you. And look at your room! You better get your shit together, or your mother and I will have to discipline you.’_

And then they left for another few weeks, leaving Steve’s blood dripping on the white kitchen tile that took hours to scrub up. 

“How’s your nose?” Tommy asked.

“Fine,” Steve repeated again.

He could feel himself, his brain - something was slipping, quietly, gradually, with every step he took, every fake smile he flashed, something was loosening in his mind, like a caged lion ready to escape. He felt his eyes, a little more edgy, a little twitchier. 

He was losing his “wow factor”, and he needed it back. Needed now, more than ever, to have people worship the ground he walked on. He needed attention. 

Needed something quick, before he found himself back at the quarry, teetering on the edge of death with _fucking Hargrove_ shoving his way into _Steve’s fucking business._

_Annoying son of a bitch._

He shot his hand through his hair, straightening his spine. 

“See you guys later,” he stood to Tommy and Carol’s make out session, neither one raising their head at him. He tossed his tray in the bin, wiped his hands on his jacket and bee-lined to his car, feeling nauseous and antsy. 

He sat in his Bimmer, trying to sort out his feelings, wishing now more than ever he had a cigarette between his lips. He eyed the group of crows eating what looked like a french fry on the ground, wishing life was just that easy. 

His eye had since healed from Friday. He had a few scrapes from last night that only drew a little blood, nothing major, his kitchen floor was pristine now. The boot print on his torso had faded.

His nose, though, was another story.

Tommy had re-broken it this morning to get in back into place, a knowing look in his eye as he counted down. Since Thursday night, it was almost healed, which made it extra painful as Tommy snapped it back into place. Luckily, it was before school, or else someone would have noticed the bottle of liquor in his hand as he yelled out ill-tempered insults. 

It hurt like a bitch, but at least it would heal right. 

The bottle lay tempting under his seat, but it’d be too risky to drink in broad daylight in a high school parking lot. As much as he was Sheriff Hopper’s biggest fan, that feeling wasn’t reciprocated. 

He fingered the gauze covering, making sure no blood was permeating the white layering. Nobody had asked him about it yet, for which he was both grateful and angry about - _didn’t his own friends care?_ It really was a sign that his social status was slipping, if not one pining freshman female had inquired about his face. I mean, it was super obvious. 

Even if they did ask, though, he wouldn’t have told them the truth. 

His mother was a thin woman, graceful and poised as a businesswoman should be. She spoke softly, but with great power behind every word. Everyone that heard her speak listened, hung onto every sentence. Her presence was respected, but her personality was timid.

His father, though, was loud and crowding. He demanded attention at meetings, forced his opinions onto others and didn’t care to think about anything other than how to get ahead of his competitors. As far as a business owner is concerned, he’s very successful. As a father, he can rot in hell. 

Speaking of hell, he watched as Billy Hargrove skidded his Camaro into the lot, sliding right into an open stall, noticed his cool-guy swagger as he disappeared through the cafeteria doors, no doubt headed for 6th. 

Steve sighed apprehensively, hoping to avoid him for the rest of the year, _the rest of the decade._ He didn’t need Hargrove’s derogatory stare as he remembered the incident on Friday, the weird afternoon they accidentally spend together when Steve was contemplating-

But, basketball season was just around the corner and practice was well underway. Steve couldn’t avoid him there. 

It’d be a day, at least, before he could take the gauze off. His nose was too yellow and black to be able to pass it off as an accident. And, he couldn’t say it was someone else that did it, or that it was a run-in with some high school fucker - Hawkins was too small a town to put the blame on anyone and he didn’t want to give off the impression that someone was _actually_ able to beat the shit outta _King Steve_.

Which meant he had to wear it to practice. 

_He was Steve Harrington, toughest guy in high school._

He was going to ralph. 

Steve heard the bell for 6th period echoing through the parking lot.

He slipped the sunglasses perched in his hair to the neck of his shirt as he walked to math, kicking lone rocks on the crumbling sidewalk. _Math to language, language to practice, practice to home. Math to language, language to-_

Hopefully he did his homework right. 

xxx

“Harrington, pick up your pace before I come out there with a whip!”

He snarled to himself, teeth bared as he ripped down the court, shoes squeaking with protest. He should have blocked the ball that made an easy sail into the hoop, but quickly redeemed himself with a solid screen that put his team ahead two points. Luckily, it was just a scrimmage, but unluckily, his coach was really on his case today. 

Unfortunately, he also had the gauze on his nose that stuck out like a sore thumb, which had seemed to predetermine him for a shitty day.

It was like he was waving a proverbial white flag on his face against his will.

“Harrington! I’m concerned you don’t have feet today, son, because I can’t see them doing a damn thing!”

He grit his teeth as he caught sight of Hargrove’s flying golden curls, arms out as he took off down the court, eyes only tracking the ball. Steve’s team was shirts today, and he noticed Hargrove had no reservations about ripping his shirt off and subtly flexing his muscles in dominance to the whole team.

The opposing team missed a basket and they all ran back down the court. Steve butted hips against Hargrove, trying to allow his team to sink another one in, but Hargrove was all hard muscle and solid frame. Sweat flew off his bare torso, making every contact slip and collision wet. With one hard shove to his foot, Billy sent Steve flying, long limbs impacting the court floor hard enough to break bones. He groaned quietly, shoulders shrinking and fingers withdrawing into fists to avoid pounding feet as the teams ran past him. He rolled over, gentle and sore, rubbing an elbow and tucking in a knee. Hargrove stood over him, blocking the yellow light fixture with his head, shining through his curls.

He reached a hand out, nearly dripping with perspiration. Steve eyed it for a second, then stood up by himself, chest bumping into the fingers he ignored. Hargrove raised a single eyebrow, unamused.

“What are you playing at, Hargrove? You push me down like a jackass, then try and help me up?”

“Don’t get all worked up, princess, it’s just sportsmanship.”

“Oh, well, thank the fuck chivalry is still alive.” Steve spat. For the next hour, they chased each other down the court, trying to best each other by making extreme plays or aggressive fouls. Their coach was exasperated by the end of practice.

“Hargrove, Harrington, this isn’t your mother’s waltz! Stop dancing around and just shoot the damn ball!”

As the team rushed to the showers, Steve took calculated steps as he began peeling the bandage off his nose. Once the tape was safely removed, he tossed it into the trash can and stripped. He found an unused shower head and switched the water on, relishing the lukewarm stream on his skin.

The water ran over Steve’s nose as he rinsed his hair, stinging the cut and getting soap in his eyes.

“Ah, fuck.” He curses, trying to press away the pain with the soft skin on the inside of his wrist.

“Take it easy, pretty boy, wouldn’t want you to be injured for the season.” He heard Hargrove under the shower head next to him, soapy noises against skin.

“Are you threatening me?” Steve asked, appalled. Hargrove scoffed.

“After the bonding session we had at the quarry?” He stepped closer, gripping the back of Steve’s neck. “Never.” He spat, aggressively bumping shoulders with Steve as he stepped out.

Steve scowled, but ignored him, turning around so the soap from his hair could slide down his back.

He walked to his locker and swung it open, looking at himself in the little magnetic mirror.

He looked like shit.

The bruise extended under his eyes, causing yellow bags to form. The area around the cut was black where Tommy had re-broken it this morning. School was out now, and nobody else was around to see his wound besides his teammates, who wouldn’t give a rats ass. He slipped some white pills out of the sandwich baggie tucked away in his locker and popped them in, dry swallowing.

He toweled his hair and pulled on clean clothes, gripping his keys as he shut his locker door and made for the exit. 

xxx

_Tuesday September 11, 1984_

He whistled, hard, with two fingers pressed to the top canines of his mouth. The hallway went silent, everyone looking expectantly at him. He felt exposed without the gauze hiding his injury, but savored the focus on him. 

“Party at my house. 9:00. Friday.” He paused. “This one’s not for pussies, so don’t bring your grandma.” The hallway erupted with cheers. Finally, Hawkins was going to have a real exciting Friday night and it was all because of him. 

The buzz was palpable, you could hardly breathe, could hardly hear anything besides the deafening roar of excitement. Suddenly, he was hoisted onto someone’s shoulders, people grabbing at his calves and ankles and arms, trying to get a piece of him. The feeling of grabby hands seared into his skin, through the legs of his jeans. He _loved it, craved it, needed it, contact._

“Hey Harrington, what happened to your face?” Someone yelled out below. 

“I got it from dickin’ your mom, Jones.” The crowd cheered. 

For now, he had his label back. The crowded hallway rumbled with chants of _King Steve, King Steve, King Steve._

From the corner of his eye, he spotted Hargrove, his face unreadable in the mass of people around, hollering and yelling their happiness. He was a statue, face blank. 

Steve felt queasy. 

Hargrove knew about his nose. 

He knew Hargrove knew the truth, was _there_ when Steve was still vulnerable and soft about it. 

He knew that bastard could see right through him.

9:00. Friday. Game on.   
  
  


xxx


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Popularity was one of the most isolating things in the world, and Steve didn’t wish it on anybody.”

_Friday September 14, 1983_

Steve shook.

His limbs quivered, wrapped around him as he forced himself to think.

He couldn’t seem to stop the shake, a delicious, consuming sort of spasm that sent blood through his veins and panic to his brain. 

It was early, early Friday morning, barely past the Thursday mark. The shitty street lamp shone through the blinds on the window, casting parallel lines that stretched across his face. He tried to open his palm, to at least begin the process of uncurling himself, prying apart his limbs from his torso and moving to his bed.

His eyes were glued open, but he felt every capillary in his cornea slow with exhaustion. His hand tugged at the upcurl of his hair, roots staying anchored into his skull, _thank fuck._

The carpet, as plush and expensive as it was, wasn’t meant for hour-long breakdowns.

When Steve was young, young enough to barely recall, his mother took him to the doctor.

_‘He’s a fidgeter,’_ the old pediatrician said. _‘He’ll be alright, but there’s new developments in medicine that could reduce his nervousness.’_

His mother, the polite, ignorant woman she is, brushed off the doctor’s recommendations for medication and told Steve he’d grow out of it, he’s just a child, he’ll need to grow up.

Well, here the fuck he was, a decade and a half later, wide-eyed and shaking at 1:45 in the morning.

_Bed. Drop Dustin off. School. Party._

He could do this.

He found his way to his bed, arms unsteady as he pulled the covers on his clammy body, stiff from the clenching disuse of his muscles.

It was at night - or, morning - that he was always at his lowest, self-deprecation overtaking his mind like a vice, unable to escape without exhaustion taking over.

_‘Don’t cry, Steven, it’s unbecoming of a man, especially someone of your wealth.’_ His father once spat at a trembling child. Since then, not a tear had leaked out of his eye in diligence to prove to his father he was worth it; repeatedly, disappointedly, his father couldn’t, wouldn’t, see Steve as an equal.

His belligerent refusal morphed into a disdainful scolding that grew into hateful disciplining. As time went on, Steve began lashing out; he got into drugs and found a group of friends that were just as wild as he wanted to be. Then, when they looked to him as ringleader, he worked his way into other social circles at school. It wasn’t too long after that, that he was dubbed ‘King Steve’. 

But now, he kept all friends at arm’s length - it became more apparent as the days went on, as he matured, that he didn’t have anyone close. Sure, everybody at school would die to be given a chance to shoot the shit with him, but he didn’t have anybody close enough to talk to.

Popularity was one of the most isolating things in the world, and Steve didn’t wish it on anybody.

Everybody loved him, but nobody _loved him,_ nobody even fuckin’ knew him, used him for his parties and his house and his rich lifestyle and then left.

Nancy wasn’t like that, though. But at the end of the day, she still left him too.

xxx

Steve was groggy as he pulled into the parking lot. He’d just dropped Dustin off at junior high. Dustin had jabbered on and on about a new experiment he and his friends were working on. Steve had a water bottle full of clear spirits his parents had imported from Russia decades ago sitting unassuming between them.

Did he feel bad for endangering Dustin’s life? Yes.

Did he want to ignore all his pain by drinking himself into oblivion? Also yes.

He took a swig of the bottle and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, something his mother would slap him for if she ever saw him doing so.

If she ever saw him at all.

He threw his glossy eyes to the parking lot, looking around. It was still early, so there weren’t many around yet. Catching sight of himself in the rearview mirror, he flinched at the reflection of his nose. The bones that lay under the thin, broken skin looked to be straight and parallel to his face, but the skin itself was a mirage of colors, so bad that the shades reached all the way out to his eyes. Against the bruised and black skin, his brown eyes seemed to make him look duller, almost gaunt.

He was already insecure about the color of his eyes, so this definitely didn’t help. 

He heard the roar of the engine before he saw it. The blue Camaro pulled up a few spots away from him, nothing but yellow lines between them. But, the driver was occupied. Steve saw the back of Hargrove’s unruly mullet bouncing as his head animatedly jerked and shook with conversation. His sister, Dustin had said her name was Max, scrunched her nose in disgust and slammed the door shut. Her red hair blurred around her as Steve watched her take off on a skateboard to the Middle School. Billy pressed himself to his seat, breathing for a moment, then slammed his fist on the dashboard. He pulled a cigarette from somewhere and cracked a window, noticing Steve looking. They caught eyes for a second, and Steve saw the vulnerability, the raw emotion in his eyes.

He looked stripped bare.

Then, it passed. Hargrove flipped him off, threw him a smirk, and cranked the sound dial to 100. Even without the Camaro’s window down, Steve would have been able to hear the thump of whatever radio trash he was listening to.

It was then that Steve decided maybe even the worst of people have their issues too.

xxx

The school was buzzing with excitement today. Steve knew his party was the cause, and basked in the idea that he was the center. People clapped him on the shoulder and went out of their way to greet him. He was just a smidge inebriated, which loosened his tongue and released some of his tension, and it seemed everyone responded more positively to his relaxed state. There were quiet chatters in the hallway about the party, about Steve’s new gel, about _Steve, Steve, Steve._

He felt alive. He felt good.

At lunch, Tommy gave him _his_ pudding cup and promised to bring the punch tonight. When Steve asked what was in the punch, Tommy smiled mischievously and dodged the question.

_If it got kids plastered,_ Steve thought, _that’d do just fine._

Luck really did seem to be on Steve’s side today, because practice was cancelled due to the Back to School Assembly. Steve had been stockpiling on booze for months, but was able to goad Carol’s older sister into making a run to the Liquor Store to grab a few things, and in return, allowing her and her friends to come to the party. 

Things were coming together.

xxx

The full-blown rager of the year, _of the century,_ was currently taking place at Steve’s Loch Nora mansion and he couldn’t be happier about it.

He was almost drunk on the sensation alone of having flying limbs pressed up against him, strangers and friends alike slamming into each other as they were moshing to the sounds of hard bass and screaming. Beer in hand, Steve had french kissed with at least five people, and his brain was fuzzy on both the alcohol and the feeling of _not being so isolated anymore._

Someone on the plant shelf above sprayed a mysterious bottle of alcohol atop the bumping bodies, but more cheers erupted from the crowd. The air was stale, and Steve inhaled it like lifeblood. The flashing lights of the disco ball made his head thrum, a delicious vibration beneath his skin. 

His house smelled like sweat and sex and booze, and it made a vicious grin plaster itself on his lips, ignoring the ache of his mutilated nose. 

He stepped off the dance area to find countless couples making out on his sofa, the armoire, kitchen table, anywhere they could find a spot. Somebody slapped his ass in the mass of people, giggling behind him. He grinned, salacious and burning and _hungry._

He wandered to the kitchen where alcohol was being distributed in waves. Grabbing a Coors, he stopped in his tracks when Nancy came into view, outside, sucking Byer’s face off. Their bodies slashed together as she clutched at his shirt, trying to find purchase so she could get leverage. 

Steve was over her. He really was. 

They never had an “official breakup” per se, but she stopped trying a few days ago, so he did too, and they haven’t talked since. 

Apparently, it was official.

It still stung. 

Overwhelmed and dizzy, he decided to take a breather. He’d been going at it for more than 4 hours now, and it seemed to get livelier by the minute, showing no signs of slowing.

Climbing the steps and avoiding the bodies, he rounded the corner, the plush carpet cushioning every step. The noises of the party got quieter the further down the hall he went. Wrenching open his bedroom door, he was alarmed but not shocked to find, of course, Hargrove, shuffling through knick knacks on his shelf.

“Oh,” Billy said casually. “Hello.” He smiled wickedly.

“Get out.” Steve’s voice was haughty, angry with anger he hadn’t been able to form in weeks.

“I wanted to see what kind of gross, pervy things Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington hides in his room.”

“You want a bat to the head?”

“Well, seeing as I’ve already beat the shit out of you, I’m not too worried.”

“I can go for round two.”

“No, your face has seen better days, pretty boy, I wouldn’t want to pour salt in your wounds.”

“Hargrove,” Steve growled. “Get the fuck out of my room.”

“Hey, hey,” Billy threw his hands up defensively, as if he hadn’t been snooping. “I’m just lookin’ around. No harm, no foul.” Billy smirked at him. The music shook the floor. 

He held up a set of glasses carefully perched on Steve’s nightstand. “These yours?”

Steve didn’t respond, just glared.

“Perfect King Steve is not really so perfect, is he? Correction lenses, hah. Your eyes are shit?”

“Not as much as your hearing, apparently.”

“I just thought, after your little episode at the quarry,” he grabbed a book, absentmindedly flipping through it. “Maybe you wanted a buddy.” Billy said jovially, a glimmer of taunting in his eyes. “Your nose fall off yet?”

“Almost.” Steve deadpanned, walking out of his bedroom, away from Billy, who was trying to balance his math textbook on his head.

He walked down the regal hallway, through rows of locked doors. His mother’s office, his father’s office, the 3rd guest room, the 5th bathroom, the sitting room – all rooms that were off-limits to him as a kid. Now, though, with his lock-picking prowess, he could go in any fucking room he wanted. But, he didn’t. Didn’t feel the need to anymore.

It was also convenient, on nights like this, that they were locked - it stopped horny teenagers from doin’ it on his father’s oak desk.

“So, where we goin’, pretty boy?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“You want me to call you an ugly bastard instead?” The music downstairs shook the house, loud enough that the neighbors had probably already called the cops. Dead or Alive’s newest hit pounded through the floorboards, making every beat shake window frames.

“I want you to call me Steve. Or, better yet, don’t talk to me at all.” He reached the large double doors, expertly jiggling the handle and pressing it inward. After a second with his ear pressed against the door, he heard the telltale _click_ that allowed him access. 

“Wow, breaking into mommy and daddy’s bedroom, how scandalous, I know calling you pet names makes you blush something _hard,_ but I didn’t know you wanted–”

“Shut the fuck up, Hargrove.” Billy snickered.

“This room is bigger than my whole house.” His voice echoed in the high ceiling, making him sound small, like he was speaking through a metal can.

“Yeah, well, welcome to luxury. Better buckle up, because you haven’t seen nothin’ yet.” Steve said sarcastically, doing the same trick on the balcony doors.

“What else are we gonna see, Harrington?” He felt Billy close, too close, could smell the alcohol on his breath, could see stains on his leather jacket from where Jones had gotten too rowdy with the champagne and exploded it everywhere. Steve eyed his gaze, faces only inches apart, suddenly feeling very, very drunk.

The door eased open, and Steve stepped out onto the balcony, overlooking the crowds that had spilled out of the french glass doors below, congregating around the pool. Someone pushed a girl in, then hollered as he jumped in himself. They sat against the doors, feet apart but feeling impossibly close. It was just far enough back on the terrace that nobody below could see them. The pitch black sky they gazed up at swallowed the bumping noise and party lights. 

Steve wondered how he even ended up here, with the person he hated the most. 

Suddenly, desperately, he wished he remembered where he left that Coors he was clutching. But, as if Billy could read his fucking mind, he pulled out a cheap bottle of tequila from nowhere and popped the lid, taking a loud swig. 

He was drunk, and tired, and maybe a little high from secondhand smoke - his self-worth was down and his irrationality was way up. 

Which is why he plucked the drink right from Hargrove’s meaty hands and took a big gulp. 

“Hey! Asshole. Get your own.” He ripped it out of Steve’s hands, but Steve had already done sizable damage to the drink. “You got a shit ton of booze here, stop bumming offa mine.”

“Nah, I’m already up here.” The roar of the party began pounding at his temples, trying to shake the moles right off his body. “Hope you don’t have herpes.”

“You’re a dick,” Billy grumbled, offended. “I’m clean as a whistle. Can’t say the same for those two.” He motioned to two people grinding in the distant tree line of Steve’s backyard, easing into the trees. 

“I bet they don’t know about the security system I’ve got. Too bad it’s turned off.”

“Hah. Fuckers. I knew.”

“Like shit you did.”

“Nah, I’ve got you figured out. Wasn’t hard.” Billy insisted. 

“I got nothin’ to hide, man.”

“Okay then,” Hargrove started, readjusting a knee. “What _really_ happened to your nose? Your perfect life, your perfect grades, your perfect fucking teeth.” He paused, glancing over. Someone broke something below, the sound of glass hitting cement. “Why were you at the quarry that day?”

Steve looked at him, eyes feeling too big and too _open._ He carefully placed a calm expression across his face, flushed from the alcohol but impassive still. He looked at Billy for a moment, watched his hair sway with the breeze, how the alcohol-matted section of it curled differently than the rest. 

He knew Billy knew about his horrible fucking parents, how they had hard hearts and even harder fists, so _why was he asking -_

_BOOM! BOOM!_

Fireworks lit up the sky as both their heads jerked upwards, taken aback. 

“Shit.” Billy muttered, stunned. 

“I forgot about the finale,” Steve mumbled, head spinning. _What just happened here?_ “Tommy must have set them off.”

“You have fucking fireworks?!” Hargrove exclaimed, appalled. 

“Found ‘em, in my basement. They were in a locked box, but I cracked the code easily.” He said, voice drowned out by the ear-shattering pops. 

“Damn. This is how Hawkins parties end?” Cheers erupted from the crowd below, whooping and hollering at the sight. Even the earth shattering pound of the music was muffled.

They watched the explosions in the sky, an array of blue, green, and red light up the night. 

Because of the thundering roar of the pyrotechnics, they didn’t hear the sirens of Hawkin’s finest before it was too late. 

“THE COPS ARE HERE!” Carol screamed down below, vaulting out of the pool and taking off towards the trees with Tommy in tow. Everyone started to scramble. It was like an ant hill when someone destroys their home - utter chaos. Some kids grabbed alcohol, flip flops and purses as they dashed to their cars, which were lined up and down the street, probably for miles.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Steve scrambled upwards as Billy did the same. 

“I can’t go to jail, I can’t even get a citation, my dad would actually fucking kill me,” Billy laughed crazily as they ran back inside and down the hallway. 

“Booze is illegal, weed is illegal, fireworks are _definitely_ against the law,” Steve yelled as they ran down the stairs together. He stumbled over someone who had passed out cold, cursing again. “Holy fucking shit.”

The mass of kids beelining to the trees was something out of a movie - hundreds of bodies, stoned to no end and drunk as a skunk disappearing into the blackness of the trees and were gone, save for a few stragglers.

Hargrove let out an animalistic whoop. “Well, this has been fun, Harrington, this party wasn’t as shitty as I thought it would be! Have fun in fuckin’ jail, see ya when you’re 80!” He cackled as he ran out the back door and sprinted for the treeline, narrowly avoiding drunk and stumbling kids as they clutched each other, trying to escape the law.

Steve stood alone in his trashed living room, shoes sticking to the linoleum floor with beer as the red and blue lights flashed across the room, hurting his eyes as they shone through the windows. His house was absolutely destroyed. His mother’s vase, cracked in the corner. He could glue it back together later.

Twenty minutes ago, he couldn’t care less - but something changed in him. 

“Steve Harrington.” He heard Sheriff Hopper’s voice behind him.

“Hi, Hop.”

“Steve.” He turned around. Hopper looked at him dejectedly, eyeing the cannabis on his mother’s teak root coffee table.

“We’re gonna have to call your parents.” 

And just like that, the hypothetical crown King Steve earned back tonight fell to the ground and shattered.

xxx


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The most privileged person in all of Hawkins High School was sitting in its parking lot at 7:16 in the morning, beaten by his own father and stranded."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiii!
> 
> This chapter got a little out of hand. I've updated the tags, so please look over those before you read. It's nothing tooo craaazy, but you've been warned. :)

_ Saturday September 15, 1984 _

It was hard to stop his constant shaking in fucking jail. 

The holding cell Steve was placed in was a cold, 4x4 concrete room with metal bars for a door. There was a small window, the glass stained with muck. The early morning sun shone through, and he could hear Sunday church bells clanging in the distance. Sitting on the foldout makeshift metal bed, his mind still buzzed deliciously from the alcohol but remained sober enough to keep quiet. 

Hopper’s boots sounded through the room as he approached Steve’s dismal state. 

“Your parents’ll be in town tomorrow night, but they’ve given me permission to drive you home.”

“I’d think I’d rather stay here, Hop. I’m gonna be six feet under for this one. If you don’t ever see me again, grab your shovel,” he joked, voice pitching. 

“Steve.” Hopper’s voice was sharp in the quiet room. “This is serious. Unlawful possession of illicit narcotics is a criminal offense. It was being passed around at a party, to high schoolers. You should be in here way longer than 12 hours.”

Steve smirked, unable to help himself. “So you’re saying I got in trouble because my party was too good?”

“I’m saying that every kid aged 16 and up from all of Hawkins was there, I don’t understand how you could’ve thought nobody would notice.” He pulled his keys out. “I’m saying you need to clean up your act, son.”

Steve’s smile subsided as he stared. His head hurt from the emotional whiplash he’d had. 

“Officers went through your house and confiscated all the contraband. Alcohol, drugs, needles-“  _ Who the fuck brought needles? _ “-and anything else that could be used against you in a court of law. Because this is your first -  _ and only _ \- incident, you don’t have a court date. Let’s keep it that way, Harrington.” Hopper threatened, jiggling the door with his keys. “We’ve let everybody who attended off on a warning.”

Steve sullenly trailed behind Hopper as they climbed into the Bronco and peeled out of the lot. Steve felt his disappointment in waves, knew he should regret his actions but didn’t. He craved attention so much it hurt, but now? All the partying didn’t seem worth it. It was fun in the moment, with the spray of beer on his body and mouth on another. He should have realized it wasn’t going to last.

He glanced over at a silent Hopper. Exhaustion laced the creases of his face and hung under his eyes. Maybe because Steve knew he was already in trouble, or because his self-preservation was down a few notches today, or because he did know this man, they fought demogorgons together for fucks sake, he decided to ask.

“Sheriff Hopper?” He grunted. “Are you... okay?” The man looked at Steve like he held all the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

“Yeah kid, I’m fine.” He sighed, hard and forceful. “Buncha farmer’s crops are dying, I’ve just been working late nights trying to figure that out.” If there was anything Steve understood, it was staying awake at preposterous hours of the night. 

But, if Hopper’s biggest worries were just dead plants, he shouldn’t look so tired. He scrubbed his hand over the stubble on his face. Steve spotted the stress in his forehead from a mile away. He was suspicious, but didn’t say anything else. 

Hopper pulled onto Loch Nora and into Steve’s long driveway, punching the vehicle into park. Steve didn’t move. Couldn’t. Felt frozen to the seat, staring at the plastic cups littering the front lawn, debris and clothing strewn in misshapen piles. 

“Go inside. Get some rest. You’re gonna have one hell of a hangover. Then clean up.” Steve nodded, once and awkward, climbing out.

“Steve.” He stopped. “I don’t wanna see you in my cell again.” He nodded again, this one more fluid. He was numb as he used his shaky hands to fumble with keys before realizing the door was unlocked. Without looking back, he closed the front door, stepping on an unknown crunch. 

He spent the next three hours stuffing plastic into trash bags and wiping up spills, puke, and suspicious white liquid. He swept the kitchen, broke out the superglue and put on his correction lenses so he could see how to reassemble the vase, and ate a peanut butter sandwich. 

He even fished a bra out of the pool and tossed shirts and shoes into the garbage. He threw away all the alcohol the Sheriff’s Department must have decided they didn’t need and changed out of his smelly, stained clothes. 

Then, when it was dark outside and his efforts were successful enough to be considered clean, he laid in his bed and shook all through the night. 

xxx

_ Sunday September 16, 1984 _

“Steve! Where were you yesterday?!” Dustin exclaimed as he hopped into the Bimmer, jittery with excitement as his mouth upturned to show an easy smile. 

“I... well, I got in a little bit of trouble.”

“Because of the party you threw?” Steve’s nose scrunched. 

“How did you know about that?”

“Max told us. Said her shithead brother walked in at 4:00 in the morning, drunk as a skunk and tripping over shit. Took her 20 minutes to wrangle his giant body into his bed. Said it was close too, her dad walked in just minutes later-”

“His dad,” Steve said absentmindedly, trying to process as his knuckles went white on the wheel. 

“What?”

“It’s his dad, not hers. Her mom married his dad Neil.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” Dustin looked at him, taken aback. 

Huh.  _ How did he know that? _ Steve felt his forehead wrinkle, parroting Dustin’s. 

“I don’t know, I guess.” He said lamely, just as confused as Dustin was. As the younger boy began to recline, Steve protested. “Hey! Feet off the dash. Are you an animal?!”

Dustin lit up again. “Oh! I found this animal, or... thing, in the trash outside my house a couple days ago. It looks gross, but I put it in my terrarium for now. I think it’s a non-aquatic pollywog, but Lucas doesn’t. That idiot doesn’t believe in anything. He doesn’t even believe that I can beat him in Dig Dug. I’m gonna go whoop his ass in about five minutes.”

Steve, still confused, asked, “what’s this got to do with Hargrove and his sister?”

“Anyway,” Dustin drawled, continuing. “Max couldn’t get him into bed because he had these stupid glasses tangled in that disgusting bleached mop he calls hair-”

Steve slammed on the breaks. Hard. 

“Ahh! Steve! What the shit is your problem?!” Dustin yelled as his things went flying, hair flopping into his eyes.

_ That stupid fucking son of a bitch.  _

The car honked behind him, impatient. 

He dropped Dustin off at the arcade, head swimming.

Hargrove swiped Steve’s Ray Bans. 

What the fuck. 

xxx

He woke up slowly, face pressed against the cold tile of his bathroom floor.

Groggily, numb to the core, he sat up. The bulbs blinded him as he tried to breathe and get his mind together. He could hear his father’s raging voice, screaming at his mother and shattering things. He didn’t remember much but his father’s fist, his slurs and curses and insults as he drew Steve’s blood. 

He needed to get out. 

The only reason he even considered leaving right now was because he knew that bastard would never hurt his mom like he did him. As presumptuous and unpleasant as she was, she didn’t deserve to face his wrath.

He stumbled to his room and blindly found his keys, trying to focus his eyes enough to be able to walk. Creaking open his door, he heard his parents voices downstairs, still arguing. He slipped down the stairs, hanging onto the banister while his vision went black for a moment. 

“-he’s a lazy fucking waste of our time! We’ve taught him to behave better, to act like an adult and look what he does! That is not my son, and I refuse to-” his father’s voice reverberated through his chest, bouncing around and settling in his core. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before, but even the hundredth time, it still hurt. 

He clicked open the front door and stepped out, silently escaping. The night air was cool on his heated and bruised skin, stinging the open wounds and rapidly drying the blood caked on him. 

He slammed the key into the ignition and took off down the road, wild and aching and irrational. 

_ Where the fuck was he going to go? _ He couldn’t even think straight. Couldn’t see the speed limit sign, even close up, because his driving was too fast and eyes too blurry. 

He’d rather die right here than go to Tommy or Carol. Didn’t want to bring any of his personal shit into the kid’s lives, especially Dustin’s. Hopper was an obvious no. He went to the quarry last time, and he didn’t want any chance of running into Hargrove again. 

He skidded into the high school parking lot, senseless, unfeeling. He stumbled out of his car, the Bimmer’s lights too bright and too in-his-face. Breathing. In. Out. Slower. He grasped at his hair, wetness getting on his hands and making a copper slick between his fingers.

Steve’s legs took him behind the school, grass dry and crunching underneath his staggering converses. His back hit the warm brick wall as he gasped for breath. His hands ran over his body, trying to figure out what was broken, what hurt,  _ what the fuck is this- _

His rib stuck out awkwardly, a grotesque bump on his side that made his head spin. The weird light fixture above him cast a dull yellow haze over him. He had blood all the way down his pants, spots and smears and he didn’t know if it was all his blood, because where the hell did it come from?

A broken rib, what felt like a blackened eye, bruises across his face and the expanse of his chest. His nose was probably fucked up again, it  _ felt  _ fucked up again, and when his hand reached up to grasp it, his wrist flopped in an awkward way that made him think his arm was probably fucked up too. 

He felt numb. 

“Shit. Ah, shit.”

His head was stuffed full of cotton, he was positive that he’d had an eardrum rupture between the screaming and the hitting. His dad probably had Steve’s blood stained on his cashmere pants, and he was probably blaming Steve for it too. 

He felt the tears roll down his face, making salty tracks on his cheeks, washing away the blood in their path. Even if he would have been coherent enough to stop them, he wouldn’t have. 

As time went on, the longer he sat there, the more his rib settled where it shouldn’t. The more he breathed, the more it made the feeling behind his eyes go dark with pain - the burning in his chest made him scrunch over and dry heave.

But you can’t puke up anything if you haven’t eaten anything. 

Steve was raw, like his soul had been stripped from him. He felt ripped open, and in a way, he was. 

A laugh bitterly emerged from him, the noise a keening, choking sound that he didn’t recognize, that wasn’t his. A warm September breeze blew through his hair that carried the sound away, into the darkness. He looked at his feet, the brown grass streaked with red, red that was Steve’s. 

He needed to scream. A hollow, scratchy sound erupted from his windpipe. 

“HUH? WHAT NOW, DAD? YOU MISERABLE BASTARD. I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU!”

Steve’s brain fell into a lull as the warmth from the bricks seeped through his cotton tee, sort of soothing. Time lost all meaning as he crouched, the tears long gone and thoughts even longer. 

xxx

_ Monday September 17, 1984 _

He must have been there all night, because he woke abruptly to the sun shining on him like a flashlight. 

He jerked up, and immediately regretted it. His torso twisted back into itself, like a knife pierced into him. Grasping at his side, he gasped as his eyes dilated and took sharp breaths through his nose. He counted to ten, then stood. 

It all rushed back to him in a blur. 

_ His party. Jail. Dustin and his parents and now, the high school.  _

Well, for fucks sake.

He looked at his watch. School was about to start. He then looked at his clothing, coated with crusted blood and brown with dirt. He couldn’t be here when students started to arrive. He really couldn’t be here. 

He needed to go, right now. 

He hobbled around the building, passing the flagpole and around the bike rack. Nobody seemed to be around yet, except for a few lone cars. The sun was really up now, bright and yellow and cheery. 

It really would be nice to have some sunglasses right now, except  _ they were fucking stolen.  _

He slinked to his car, catching sight of himself in the shiny blackness of his window. 

He blanched. 

Holy fucking shit. 

How he was even functioning, Steve really didn’t know. His face was beat to shit. There was blood everywhere, dried but streaking down his neck and onto the collar of his white shirt. Bruises littered the pale skin on his face like constellations. The poor skin on his nose,  _ of course, _ because fate hates him, was broken and yellow again. The bones looked okay though. There was dried blood smearing out of his ear. He didn’t dare lift up his shirt to expose his midsection, because he knew it would be worse. 

He imagined this is what he would have looked like if he’d actually jumped into the quarry.

He eased into his car, mindful of his ribs but grunting still. It took him a second to locate his keys, but he jammed them into the ignition and turned his hand. 

_ Click, click, click.  _

His car was dead. He’d left his headlights on all night. 

Fuck. 

_ ‘Now, son’  _ his dad said on his 16th birthday. _ ‘The headlights are what allows you to see when you’re operating. They’re one of the most important aspects of a vehicle. If you don’t have headlights, you can’t drive, especially at night. Don’t ever forget about them.’ _

Well, guess what? He fucking forgot about them. 

His head hit the wheel with a thump.  _ What now? _ He didn’t have anybody. Brain working in overdrive, desperation clawed at his throat like something was growing inside of him. His palms perspired, his chest stuck between hyperventilating and spearing his lungs with rib fragments. 

The most privileged person in all of Hawkins High School was sitting in its parking lot at 7:16 in the morning, beaten by his own father and stranded. 

Stranded.

_ Lonely.  _

It was like he was breathing through a straw. His head fell in his hands. It was over. He was over. He slammed his hand on the dashboard in anger, and immediately remembered his bad wrist. Gasping in pain, his eyes filled with tears. 

He needed somebody. Anybody. 

He looked around, dejected and forlorn. A few kids had piled into the parking lot, all looking as depressed as he felt. The sun shone through his back window, warming the hair on his head, which was flat now. 

He noticed a car, small and unassuming, parked in the back corner of the lot. His eyes slid to the chess club nerds, huddled and cackling about a bug or something. He looked at the swim team that flooded out of the side doors, wet hair and blue suits like reflectors. 

He wished he had a cigarette right now. 

Maybe he could just sit here and not get out of his car, then after everyone had gone inside for first period, he could walk home. It was definitely too late to walk now, the one-road drive to get to the school was definitely already flooded with minivans and Ford Fiestas. 

There’s no way he could walk home. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this,  _ broken.  _

Hopefully his parents had already left for the Hamptons again. 

He jumped to the sound of a fist pounding on the passenger window, hard and loud. His hand immediately went to his side as he jostled his ribs. Grumbling, he reached over and pushed open the door, his windows were automatic instead of crank like everybody else’s. 

Damn his fancy Bimmer. 

It was a girl, no older than him, short hair and stout jaw and grim look on her face. 

“Hey, um. I just, I just noticed you don’t look so good, and I was just wondering if, ya know. If you’re okay.”

Robin, he thought her name was. 

“Um,” he said dumbly. She looked at him. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

No he wasn’t. 

“Oh, okay. I’m glad. Your face just looks a little, well, like shit. Just checkin’.” She waved her arm awkwardly, like a robot, backing away. The red converse she wore  _ clumped _ on the ground, like they were too big for her. 

“Wait.” He said, then paused. She stopped. 

“Could you give me a ride?”

On the way home, she eyed him wordlessly and turned on the heater even though it was supposed to be 77° and sunny. 

And they passed Hargrove on the street, Camaro too loud and eyes shrouded in Steve’s black Ray Bans. 

xxx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Robin doesn’t come in until season 3, and this story takes place in season 2, but I love her so much and poor Steve needs a friend right now, so I allowed it. Also I do what I want. ;)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “As he pulled out of the parking lot, he failed to notice a certain Camaro with a certain blonde boy in it, sitting, watching, with a concerned look on his face.”

_Tuesday September 18, 1984_

Steve’s mind was like a dam; once he started, he couldn’t stop. It was like he couldn’t talk fast enough. The past week came pouring out of him like honey, and Robin was all too happy to drink it up. 

_It was the gossip,_ she said, _that she loved._

“So, you’re wearing the vest because...?”

Steve huffed. “It’s a parka. And I’m wearing it because the hood is tall enough to hide the black fingerprints on my neck.” They’d been slow to show, but now the bruises were dark and yellow on the edges, far too visible on the pale length of his neck.

Robin whistled, low and deep.

All morning, he’d been congratulated on such a bangin’ party or shot finger guns because he’d ‘risen to the top of the school hierarchy’ again. Nobody cared to ask him why he was mysteriously gone on Monday though, or who helped clean up after the party, or even why his face was beat to shit again. 

Nobody here gave a shit about him.

After Robin took him home yesterday morning, he was immediately relieved to find his parents gone again - their car wasn’t in the driveway, but he made sure to timidly check every room in the house before he could totally relax.

They’d left a note on the shining granite countertop, though, one that Steve didn’t want to repeat. He crumpled the note and tossed it in the bin immediately. 

_‘Grow up, Steven. Do better.’_

Dressing his own wounds was almost too hard. He definitely wasn’t a nurse, and didn’t plan on becoming one. After spilling half the contents of the safety kit on the ground, he wrapped his ribs in gauze and put a cold compress on top, which stung like a fucking bitch, but relieved the pain enough for him to get a few hours of sleep. 

His hands still shook under his thread sheets, though. 

He didn’t want to inconvenience Robin by asking for a ride back to the school early the next morning, but she was way ahead of him. She leaned against her car, popping gum and watching the sun peak over the mountains as he ripped the old battery pack out of the Bimmer and tossed it aside. 

And now at lunch, she seemed to find him first. She tossed her tray next to him on the table and plopped down, kindly demanding answers to all her questions. 

And because she was one of Steve’s only _real_ friends now, and because he was tired of _not talking about it,_ he told her. 

He filled her in on every detail, from the quarry to the party to jail and his parents. It felt freeing, in a way, to have someone else know of the burden that he’d been drowning under. 

“So, you’re telling me that your parents spend all their time in the Hamptons, and when they’re not in the Hamptons, they’re here, beating the tar out of you?”

“Pretty much.”

“And your dad did that to your nose?”

“Twice.”

“And the bruises on your neck?”

“And my ribs.”

“Shit.” 

“Yeah.” Steve agreed.

“And I’m guessing we’re not gonna tell anyone?”

“Nope.”

“Well, that’s a terrible idea.” Robin protested.

“It’s not a terrible idea until I end up in a foster home for 8 months until I’m 18. They’re never home anyways, it’s not a big deal.”

Robin dropped it for now, but Steve could see the storm forming behind her eyes.

“For the record, I don’t blame you - for throwing the party, I mean. If my parents spent all their time sipping rum on the beach, I’d do the same. Run wild, go crazy, have a stupid good time doing whatever the hell I wanted.”

Steve snorted. “Yeah, until you end up in jail. My house is now on neighborhood watch, Robin. The police have my address pegged.”

But she wasn’t listening anymore. He followed her gaze to the middle of the lunchroom where somebody was chugging a chocolate milk, a posse of people clumped up to cheer him on. Robin was zeroed in on a girl, black ponytail swinging as she laughed and jostled around her friends. 

Steve looked to Robin, then the girl, then back to her. “Is that your friend?”

“That’s why I was there yesterday morning. I mean, that’s why I stuck around after I dropped my sister off.” She mumbled, stirring her cafeteria soup with distaste. 

The swim team. 

Steve had seen them yesterday, just ending practice. 

Oh. 

_Oh._

“Ah.” He said, processing. 

“Her name’s Heather. She likes to swim, she’s a lifeguard in the summers, and she’s funny and kind and way out of my league.” She scoffed, brushing off her hands. “She doesn’t even know I exist.”

“Her loss.” Steve said simply.

She smiled at him, and if her eyes were a little wet, Steve didn’t notice. 

And then, a few members of the basketball team caught sight of him and started a chant to his name.

_‘King Steve, King Steve, Keg King-’_

This time, he had to really convince himself he loved the attention.

xxx

“I didn’t see you around yesterday.” 

Hargrove came up beside him, falling into step with Steve’s steady jog. Steve ducked his head, risking flat hair but trying to hide his mottled neck.

“Yeah well, I’ve been busy.” 

“You? Too busy for school? That’s bullshit and I know it.” He took a fancy hop-and-step so he was positioned ahead of Steve, moving backwards. 

“You think you know everything, huh?” He could feel his heartbeat in his side, right above his fucked up rib. 

“Like I said, I’ve figured you out.” Steve didn’t have to look up to imagine his blonde curls flopping everywhere.

“Yeah, well, surprise, because I’ve figured you out too. Give me back my glasses.”

Billy laughed, jaw wrenching open to make the noise loud and boisterous. “Took you fuckin’ long enough.”

Steve coughed once, twice, voicebox strained to hell, hoping Billy could sense his unamusement. 

“So, you really did end up in jail, huh? Hope you didn’t drop the soap.” He cackled again. 

“Just a holding cell,” Steve mumbled, voice barely audible over the impact of their footsteps on pavement. 

“Ooh, a holding cell,” the sarcasm was evident. “Don’t worry pretty boy, your daddy will just erase the whole ‘party incident’ from your record with a bribe and you’ll still be good to get into any college you want.”

If only he knew. 

“Why are you even out here? To annoy the shit outta me?” His tone held a little more fire than he’d intended, but it landed still. 

“Tanked a couple shots. Hagan thinks we’re two peas in a fucking pod now. I don’t want to get too chummy with any of the guys in there, anyway. They can’t take it like you can.” He slowed. “That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I wasn’t flattered.” Steve deadpanned. He was convinced there was an actual knife in his side. Breathe. In. Out. One hour. Focus. 

They jogged around the track again in silence, the sounds of huffing coming from both of them. He watched their shoes as they pounded on the pavement, shoelaces flopping around. 

He could feel exactly where his father’s hand had wrapped around his neck, felt the swollen glands as his head ducked down. 

“So, about my glasses,” Steve started.

“Not like you can wear ‘em anyway, with that fucked up nose of yours. I’m sure you can just buy new ones, rich boy.”

Steve came to a halt, hard. Hargrove copied his movements, shoes squeaking on the ground. 

He loses it. Something in his brain just - _snaps,_ like whatever vice his mind had been in broke.

“You know what, Hargrove? You can fucking shove it. I’m not going to apologize because my parents have money and yours turned out to be fucking sewer rats.” Billy drew back, like he’d been stung, lips curled into a vicious snarl. 

“I was just joking around, you-” He growled, but his eyes had wandered down to the collar of Steve’s shirt, and Steve recoiled, because _he’d seen-_

“What is that?” Billy’s eyes were on his now, anger laced with confusion. 

Steve was frozen. He couldn’t move. He knew Billy knew about his shitty parents, but _this was extreme,_ Steve knew, _even for his father._

“Harrington, what’s on your neck?” Steve grasped at his jersey collar, yanking it up as to cover what Hargrove already saw, trying to erase the last 10 seconds desperately.

“Steve, _what in the fuck-“_

“Harrington! Get your ass inside.” Steve glanced up to see his coach hollering at him. Practice must be over. Because he didn’t show up for practice yesterday, he knew there were insufferable drills waiting for him.

_He knew they were fingers. Billy knew._

“Keep the fucking glasses.” Steve said, walking across the wet grass back inside the gym.

He didn’t look back to Billy, whose feet were seemingly cemented to the track. 

xxx

Steve did his drills. He ran the court and shot the ball and did layups and anything else his coach demanded. If he was a little slower today, his coach didn’t comment on it. 

Steve almost, _almost,_ wished that he did. 

It was nice to push all of his problems out of his head for a minute. On the court, he could focus on one thing only - basketball. Being in the heat of a game was the only time he ever successfully ignored his aches and pains.

He changed in the locker room, toweling the sweat out of his hair. He could’ve showered there, but didn’t want to risk anyone seeing his wrapped up torso, didn’t want anyone’s glances or stares. Not that anyone stuck around in the locker room longer than necessary, and thankfully it was all emptied out by the time he got there.

He stared at himself in the magnetic mirror that hung on the inside of his locker door and placed his fingers directly over the bruises. He scoffed, then coughed as the motion scratched his throat. He debated covering his nose with more gauze, but decided to leave the rest for his ribs. Besides, it made him look kind of badass.

His car was one of the last ones in the parking lot. It was a long walk there, body sore and tired after over-exerting himself at practice. Robin warned him not to push himself too hard, but he needed the distraction, and was almost grateful for it. He sat on his freshly-bleached seats, the pleather squeaking as he adjusted to find his keys. Luckily, the blood had all come out.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, he failed to notice a certain Camaro with a certain blonde boy in it, sitting, watching, with a concerned look on his face. 

xxx

_Wednesday September 19, 1984_

It was times like this that he was grateful for his distant mother. 

“Stevie baby, thank you for taking Dusty-buns. My bunko club is having an open-bar tonight, if you catch my drift,” she guffawed, high-pitched and loud, like a witch. 

Steve thought his ears might’ve been bleeding, but smiled politely anyways. “Not a problem, Mrs. Henderson. I know it’s a school night, so I’ll have him home before 9:00.”

“9:00?” He heard Dustin grumble behind him. “I’m not a baby.” 

They got into his car and took off down the road. Steve wasn’t too excited about the prospect of spending his evening at the arcade, but as strange as their relationship seemed, he was grateful to be able to talk to Dustin again. 

“Did coach open a can of whoop-ass on you at practice again?”

“The usual. Not even Hargrove hounded me today. He kept his distance, which was hella weird, but I’m not complaining.”

It was weird, the longer he thought about it. Hargrove and his blonde mullet were made scarce today. Steve didn’t catch a sight of him at all during school, didn’t have to dodge his snarky remarks once. 

Even at practice, even when Steve was being really aggressive, he kept his hands out of the way and didn’t shove Steve once. 

“Lucas and Mike are gonna meet us there. Probably Max too.” Dustin paused, unsure. “Will had an… episode today at school, so he probably won’t be there.”

Steve’s brows furrowed. Poor kid couldn’t catch a break. He glanced at Dustin, who looked broken-hearted. 

“Hey,” he reached over and grasped his shoulder. “It’s okay. His mom’s helpin’ him out, and I’m sure Hopper is too. I heard they got a new shrink in Hawkin’s Lab. Will’s gonna be just fine, buddy.” Dustin nodded. 

They spent the rest of the drive talking about Dustin’s pollywog Dart, how it hated lettuce but loved nougat. 

“It spontaneously got bigger, I swear!”

Steve nodded along as they pulled into the parking lot. He noticed the blue Camaro there, idling.

_Ah, great._

Steve hadn’t forgotten about the fingerprints on his neck that were discreetly hidden beneath a jacket, and he was sure Billy hadn’t either.

He got out of his car and followed Dustin inside as he chattered on. Apparently, he’d taken Yertle out of the terrarium to put Dart in, and lost him somewhere in his room. 

The arcade wasn’t his favorite place, that much was for sure. He never hung out here as a kid, but maybe that was due to his parent’s ‘we’re upper class’ mindset - this place was definitely a dive, but the kind of dive that he probably would have loved. 

He nodded at the creeper chowing on Cheetos at the front desk as the kids weaved and bobbed their way through the sea of prepubescent 12 year olds. He glanced over to see Hargrove and the redhead working their way over. Dustin found a game he wanted to play and dove in, group huddling around to see the screen. 

It was Galaga, and Steve had no idea what the fuck that even meant. 

He watched them play for five or six rounds. Lucas was almost pro at avoiding the projectiles, but couldn’t shoot for shit. Mike was a good aim, but couldn’t move the joystick fast enough to avoid the missiles. 

Steve smiled, warm and fuzzy, because this was home for him. Not the game, and definitely not the arcade, but these _kids._

Out of nowhere, a small child careened into Steve, limbs flying and feet stumbling.

“Sorry!” A tiny voice yelled as the culprit ran off, but the damage had already been done.

He saw stars twirling behind his unseeing eyes, red spots filling his vision. He felt a knee hit the ground, teeth clenching so hard they could’ve fallen out. The area surrounding his injured rib felt on fire. For a moment, he wondered if one of his lungs had been pierced by the broken bone, because he struggled to even stay conscious. 

He couldn’t breathe, and no matter how hard he tried, there was _no air in his body._

As he remained knelt over, perspiration formed on his forehead that hung limply toward the ground. He heard Dustin yelling over him, could make out Mike’s dirty keds, but the blood rushing in his ears blocked out everything. One jean-clad knee stuck to the sticky wooden floor, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t _think-_

He felt a giant hand grasp at his side, right over the injury. He almost jerked back, but realized it was stabilizing, _securing_ him. 

“Breathe, pretty boy.” He felt Hargrove’s curls tickle at the side of his head. His own hair had fallen from its crest at this point, but he squeezed his eyes and forced his diaphragm to work properly. He slowly unclenched his white knuckles from the legs of a nearby arcade game and took one big breath. The hand gently pressing against his side remained. 

He looked up to Billy’s eyes on him, piercing blue orbs focused on Steve only. Steve knew he looked like shit, and his face was probably blue from lack of oxygen, but all he could see, all he could _think about_ was those eyes, as blue as the quarry’s water and the sky on a summer day and his _own parent’s eyes-_

He wanted to drown in them. 

“I’m good.” he wheezed. Mike, who had apparently disappeared, returned again with a cup of ice water and thrust it into Steve’s hands. Billy helped him stand, making sure his feet were under him, then shoved his way to the glass door, yanking it open and exiting, bell dangling pathetically. 

Steve stared. 

“Don’t mind him,” Max spoke up next to him. “He’s moody as hell.” Steve laughed, small and too awkward to be coming out of his mouth.

“Steve.” He introduced himself, still out of breath.

“I know.” She said. “I’m Max.”

Steve enjoyed watching the kids play Dig Dug, getting angry and yelling instructions at each other. When they had tapped out their ziploc baggie, he forked over a ten so Dustin could get some more change in quarters. That’d get them another hour, at least.

He made friendly conversation with a floozy from school, who wanted to know everything about New York and the Caribbean. When he said he didn’t know, that only his parents had visited there, she quickly became disinterested. 

He didn’t blame her. 

Twenty minutes to nine, Steve stepped outside to find Hargrove languidly lounging on the hood of his Camaro, cigarette in hand. 

He swallowed. His car was on the opposite end of the lot, almost calling his name. He didn’t owe Hargrove anything. Not a damn thing. But, he defeatedly shook his head and wandered over anyways. 

“They’re playing their 9th round of Pac-Man. I told ‘em they had 5 minutes.”

Billy looked at him. “Stupid game to be wasting their quarters on.”

“Well, it’s all about the strategy.” 

Billy scoffed. “What strategy? The strategy is to not get touched by those fuckin’ ghosts.”

“You go under home-base first, cover the outsides, then go to the middle. Everybody plays that way.”

“No fuckin’ way, are you crazy? _Who_ plays that way? You go to the top of the screen first, then work your way down.”

“That’s insane, Hargrove. We’ll just have to put our skills to the test sometime.”

“Okay, I’m game.” Billy smirked. “Whoever wins gets to keep the glasses.”

Steve’s eyebrow quirked. “It’s a deal. May the best man win.”

Billy took a long drag of his cigarette, the end glowing against the impending night.

Steve eyed it, craving one but knowing his lungs were too at risk right now. But, Billy caught on. 

“Just ask.”

“Nah,” Steve denied, thinking of his ribs. “Camel’s are better anyway.”

“Only if you’re someone’s bitch.”

“They pack easier.”

“Less tobacco, though.” Billy countered. 

“Less hassle, you mean.”

“Too sweet.”

“They don’t smell as rancid as that fuckin’ thing you’ve got in your mouth.”

“You’re something else, Harrington.” Billy said after a pause, his chuckle warming Steve’s chest. 

They sat in silence. Steve felt that anything he could’ve said wouldn’t have been good enough.

“Your dad?” Hargrove motioned to his torso. 

“Yeah,” Steve whispered. He glanced at Billy’s split knuckles. “Your dad?”

“Yep.” Billy said, popping the ‘p’. The quiet burned holes in the air between them. “Steve-”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

“No, listen.” He huffed, uncomfortable but persistent. “I know how it feels to get the shit-end of the stick when it comes to the parent department, okay? Just,” he shifted. “You’re not alone, okay?” 

Steve felt like his insides were going to burst into flames. 

“And I’m sorry for being a jackass.” Steve’s ears must have been full of cotton, because there was no way he heard right. 

“What?”

“You heard me, fucker.” Billy mumbled.

“Did you just apologize? To me?” Steve laughed, light and airy. He felt lighter than he had in months. “Wow. Billy Hargrove, toughest guy in school, just apologized to me, the King of Hawkins. This must be a dream!” 

He squawked as Billy shoved him off the hood of his car, cackling all the way down to the pavement.

xxx

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can we talk about how Billy purposefully pissed off the coach just to run laps with Steve? my heart is melting.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The street lights lined the road as far as Steve could see, quiet yellow orbs that shone down on the pavement. It made him feel unsettled, the hair raising on the back of the neck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody! Welcome back! I'm posting this super impulsively, so any mistakes are my own (and there probably will be some haha).
> 
> As usual, comments and kudos are always appreciated. ;)
> 
> Hope everyone's doing well! Thanks for reading!

_Saturday October 27, 1984_

“He ate mews!”

“What?” Steve rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, looking at his alarm clock. 

“Steve, this is a class 5 emergency!”

He yawned and stretched, squishing the landline in between his shoulder and ear. “What does class 5 mean again?”

“Steve, honestly! Class one, cranky mothers. Class two, missed a homework due date. Class three, girl problems. Class four, demogorgons are back. Class five, death!” Dustin hissed the last one. 

“The cat is dead?”

“Yes, dammit, Steve, listen!”

“Dustin, it’s-” he glanced at his clock again. “6:45 in the morning.”

“I’m freaking out, and my mom just left for water aerobics, and I have fucking cat blood on my carpet!”

“Okay, okay,” he soothed. “Breathe, buddy. I’m coming over, okay?”

“Okay, but hurry, because if this blood soaks into the carpet, I’m fucked.”

He got out of bed and found his jeans, yanking them up. He’d wanted to get through a whole month of normalness - no fights, no blood or parents or ex-girlfriends - and he’d almost succeeded. 

_How does a pollywog eat a whole cat?_

His Bimmer purred to life as he took off towards Dustin’s house. The sun was just peeking over the mountains. He squinted to see as he navigated Dustin’s small, homey neighborhood. 

He was sitting on the steps outside when Steve pulled up. 

“You look like shit, kid.” He stepped out of his vehicle, stretching again.

“Yeah well, wait and see what I look like after my mom finds a cat carcass in my room.”

“I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about,” Steve said. “It’s probably just a little lizard.”

“No, it’s not. It went from this,” Dustin held his hands close together. “To this.” He spread them apart. 

Steve quirked a hip, already ready for this day to be over. 

“Where is it?”

xxx

The door to his cellar was creepy and old and looked like it used to house termites. 

“I don’t hear anything,” he said as he tapped it with his bat. 

“He’s in there,” Dustin gulped. 

Steve undid the chain that wrapped around the handles and heaved open the doors. The morning sun shone down the dusty steps. He stepped inside, looking back at Dustin. 

“I’ll stay out here and keep watch.”

Steve rolled his eyes and continued down. Old bottles of fruit and rusted tools littered the shelves. This must have been a tornado shelter that doubled as a home for overgrown tadpoles that spontaneously grew legs. 

“Dart,” he called out, water dripping in the corner. The air was musty and stale, and he shoved his hand under his nose to keep from sneezing. Thank fuck his nose was mostly healed, but maybe if it was still broken, he wouldn’t be able to smell this shit.

He heard a _squish_ under him, and slowly removed his foot as he looked down. 

“Augh, shit, that’s fucking disgusting,” he moaned as he recognized the mess. 

Shedded skin. 

“You better get down here!” He yelled towards the doors, turning the skin around at the end of his bat. It dripped with mucous and viscous fluid, and smelled just as horrible.

Dustin came up beside him. 

“Oh, it smells like ass,” he grabbed his nose. “Skin?”

“Yeah,” Steve confirmed, wincing. 

“He’s grown.” The horror was apparent in Dustin’s voice. “Again.”

_Again?_ As he turned his head to question Dustin, his eye caught something on the wall - not _on_ the wall, but _in_ the wall, as in-

He’d heard something a while ago, something that was nagging at his brain, because this was all coming together, but-

Tunnels. The animal had dug out of Dustin’s cellar. Hopper’d told him weeks ago about the dead crops. The hole was giant, though, way too big for a small reptile to make.

_This had to be related._ He wondered if Hopper knew. Steve should probably tell him. 

But right now, he had bigger problems. 

xxx

“Harrington! I know you’ve got my step-sister hidden inside that bus.”

“Uh,” Steve lifted his head to see Hargrove approaching, steam coming out his ears. He didn’t take the bait. “I think I saw her go in there.” He went back to tying knots, feeling the pressure of finishing before the sun disappeared behind the mountains. He had 10 minutes, tops. 

Him and the kids had spend most of their precious daylight in the backroom of Mr. Saltzer’s butcher shop getting a bucket of meat for bait.

“What’re you doing hangin’ out in a junkyard? Finally found your real home?”

“Har, har,” he deadpanned. “Dustin! How’s the siding going?”

“Almost done!” He heard back. 

Billy’s shadow fell on him as he knelt on the ground, hands tangled in knots. 

“Go home, Hargrove.” 

“Too embarrassed about your metal fort? How old are you, like 12?”

A weary composure settled across his pale face as he stood, too tired for any of this shit. He felt the exhaustion in the back of his brain, a small ache that’d made a home in the gray matter.

But something was wrong.

Hargrove was tired too. Perhaps even more tired than Steve was, _felt._ His eyes were adorned with black bags and his stubble was unshaven. The most alarming part, though, was the gash on his forehead. What he had assumed was a blur of proverbial steam _was actually blood._

“Shit, what happened to you?”

“You would know.” 

And Steve did know. He knew too well, that Mike’s Tavern had a new 24 hour policy. Neil must’ve taken advantage of that.

As much as Steve liked his fake bravado, the charade of the fearless, cocky leader he portrayed, he was over it. He’d been over it for a while now. The term ‘King Steve’ didn’t mean much to him anymore. 

He approached him without concern, although he probably _should_ have been concerned. Billy looked angry. “Lemme see.”

“No, it doesn’t fuckin’ matter.” Billy said aggressively, but touched Steve’s elbows gently as he tried to examine Billy’s forehead. Steve turned Billy’s head back and forth on his fingertips, soft curls sliding effortlessly through his fingers.

“It does. Stop moving your head.” Steve lightly smeared the blood on his forehead with a thumb, looking into Billy’s eyes. 

Just like on the cliff at the quarry, on the floor of the arcade, at the track, they seemed to capture his gaze. The blueness had tried to swallow him up on day one and he had resisted, but today, he let it. 

They were hard and calculating, but Steve saw warmth, and reassurance, and comfort, and everything else his distant parents had deprived him of. 

It felt like home, and Steve was scared shitless.

He heard a haunting howl of a dog somewhere behind him. Another pinged through his ears at the opposite end of the junkyard. Rustling seemed to surround them now, a low growl accompanied the quiet noise.

Steve knew, even without being able to see anything, that they were here.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Shh.” He shushed quietly, feet light and still to avoid making noise and drawing attention to them. His hands were grasping Billy’s biceps through the jean jacket he was wearing. Billy was also looking around, with confusion on his face instead of concern like Steve’s. 

He didn’t fail to notice Billy’s fingertips lingering on his elbows, through the windbreaker he had on, but that didn’t quench the fire that shot through him. 

He heard a snap to his right. 

“Get in the bus.” He spoke low, pushing Billy sideways as his feet hopped with trepidation. 

“What? Harrington, shit, what’s going on?” He resisted. 

“Steve!” He heard Dustin’s voice through the metal barrier of the bus. “They’re here, get inside!”

“Billy! Bus, now!” Steve tightened his grip on the blonde man’s sleeve and yanked him towards the bus, converse stumbling on junk and discarded waste. He heard the growls behind him now, and lifted his head to see the panicked faces of the kids in the bus window. 

“Steve, behind you!” Dustin yelled again. Steve whipped his head around, hand still wound in Billy’s sleeve as they ran, to see the flower head of a demodog. Its teeth were sparkling white as drool dripped from its gaping mouth. 

The snarling flower head latched onto Billy’s boot, plant-like paws keeping in perfect sync with their pounding feet. 

Billy made a nonsensical noise as he was jerked backwards, hands hitting the ground to keep himself from face planting in the dirt. Steve’s hand clutching Billy’s sleeve was yanked downwards as he fell, causing him to stumble back. The demodog was trying to pull Billy away, _away_ from Steve towards the looming darkness of the piles of junk, sun long gone. 

No, _no._

Steve planted his feet, _hard,_ hard enough that he halted the dog’s movement. Billy lurched forward by the strength of Steve’s hands, which were _still_ painfully dug into his jean jacket. He was trying desperately to wiggle out of the death grip his foot was in, cussing and shouting up a storm. 

They were at a standstill, like a vicious tug-of-war with a man in between them, and Steve’s arms were about to give out. The dog’s flowered head was wrapped around Billy’s foot like a vice. 

“Steve!” He heard a yell, could see Mike sticking out a broken window, waving the bat, _his bat,_ around. 

This was going to be dicey. 

“Do you trust me?” He yelled over the growling. 

“About as far as I can throw you!” He heard Billy exclaim.

_What the fuck did that mean? He looked strong, and Steve would bet a lot that Billy could actually throw him pretty far, judging by the size of the biceps he was clutching-_

He saw the bat arc through the air just as he let go of Billy’s arms. The demodog saw its chance and took it, yanking Billy’s flailing body, but Steve had already caught the bat mid-air and swung it so hard into the flower head of the beast that he heard crunching. 

The dog yowled in pain, collapsing into a heap. 

“Holy shit! Oh my hell, oh my-“ he heard from the bus, but he couldn’t stop moving even for one second, because he heard the incessant growling of others, circling. 

He heaved Billy’s gasping body up, and they took off across the lot. Summer basketball conditioning prepared him for the running part, but not the dodging-and-jumping-over-shit part. Billy’s leg limped lamely along as they ran.

Billy launched himself up the stairs, Steve following suit. Together they wrenched the door closed, a high squeaking, metal on metal sound. 

“Billy!” Max was the first to approach them, the others not far behind. 

“Max, you little bitch, where have you been? Dad’s pissed-“ but the kids erupted into protests. 

“We got stuck and these things tried to eat us!” Mike. 

“Don’t call her that!” Lucas. 

“Steve saved our lives!” Dustin. 

“Whoa, whoa, all you little shits, shut it.” Billy yelled, clutching at his forehead with a thumb and forefinger. Steve realized his bleeding had slowed, the red smear through his eyebrow had dried thanks to the running. He could hear the demodogs snarling and circling the bus now. 

“Everybody on the roof.”

“Wait, wait! Hold the fuck up, I just-“ Billy huffed forcefully. “Someone tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Those things out there-“ Steve pointed his bat towards a broken window. “-are called demodogs. They’re trying to eat us.”

“Or take us to the upside down.” Dustin supplied. 

“And Dustin raised one for a little bit, but it ate his mother’s cat-“

“Mews?!” Mike yelled, shocked at the news. 

“-and found more friends, and now we’re trying to keep them from getting to us.”

Billy gaped. 

“And now, it’s incredibly important that we move to the roof, okay everybody? Come on.” Steve ushered the kids through the emergency exit and boosted them to the roof. When only Billy remained, eyes wide, Steve motioned up. 

“Come on, Hargrove. Hurry up.”

“No fuckin’ way.”

“Billy!” He sighed, exasperated. “You can be a piece of shit in a minute, but right now, I’m trying to keep you alive.”

A demodog slammed against the side of the bus, rocking the floor. 

“No. I have no idea what the fuck the upside down is, and I have absolutely no idea what is going on, but if you’re going to fight these ugly ass lookin’ dogs, then gimme a bat too.” Billy demanded, hand out. 

“Absolutely not. Listen,” Steve raked a hand through his hair, hearing the scratches against the bus’s paint. “I’ve fought these things before, last year. They’re wiry little fuckers. I know how to do this. I’ve had experience. It’s just another-“ he swung the bat, Babe Ruth style. “-normal Saturday night, walk in the park for me.”

“Harrington-“

“Go protect those kids. I know you hate ‘em, but if I…. don’t make it, then you can step up, have your shot at fame, whatever, okay?”

He huffed again, then boosted himself up on the roof. 

“Don’t die, okay, pretty boy? I don’t wanna be their fucking babysitter.” Then Hargrove’s head disappeared. 

Steve grinned, malicious and animalistic. He didn’t realize how much his cells craved a release. His knees shook with fear, an exhausted-sort of shake, but his brain was in overdrive.

Game on. 

One broke through the door, smashing into the driver's seat and shaking it off, stepping forward. He delivered an easy blow to its head, blood caught on the nails. Another dove through a window. Steve drove his bat under the animal and slammed it between the ceiling and his weapon. 

He heard the kids screaming above, heard Billy’s voice as he tried to quiet them.

The first one was back for more. He hit it twice and shoved it with his foot into the second dog. They howled in pain as they collided. 

A third one, seemingly appearing out of thin air, caught him on the shoulder.

He was driven to his knees, shouting through clenched teeth, sweat matting the perfect wave of hair on his forehead.

He saw white, fire erupting from the injury, racing down his arm and through his chest. The flower petals were sunken into his flesh; he could feel the tiny hairs tickle his skin as his eyes clenched shut, trying to make his arms work enough to move, to fight, _to do something-_

A tire the size of a horse fell on the demodog and it was smashed to the floor of the bus, whimpering and yelping. Steve’s shoulder wound was already seeping crimson through his white cotton tee and sticking to the inside of his gray windbreaker. 

He looked up, eyelids cracked, to see Billy Hargrove’s ugly mug peering down. 

“Yeah, you motherfuckers! Is that all you got?!” His blonde curls flipped into his face, making him partially hidden from Steve’s view.

He readjusting his grip on the bat as it became slippery with red and stood.

He could see a couple circling outside, could hear their shrieking howls fill the air as they prepared to fight. He gripped his bat, right arm weak from the bite, blood pumping with adrenaline that he hadn’t felt in ages. 

He felt like shit, _probably looked like shit,_ but he hadn’t felt this alive in _a while._

They approached the openings of the bus one by one - one crouched inside a window, another snarling at the door, a third and fourth and fifth sitting in the shadows, waiting. 

Steve forced himself to breathe. He’d protect these kids, no matter what. 

But then, it all stopped. 

The dogs went silent and lifted their heads in sync, the petals of their flower heads gently bobbing with the motion. They all left. Just took off out of the bus and into the darkness, a whole herd of them. 

Steve remained in his fighting stance, huffing out air that his chest couldn’t get enough of. He dropped the bat with a _clank._

“What the fuck?”

They all ran. Even the one that grabbed onto Billy’s boot that Steve annihilated with his bat. 

He yanked open the remaining skeleton of the broken bus door and stepped outside. The tall, generator-powered lights must’ve kicked on at some point, because Steve could see the damage now. Slime trails spotted the ground.

“Where did they go?” Lucas asked, stepping out the bus. The others followed suit.

“Dart?” Dustin questioned dejectedly, the breeze carrying it away.

Steve felt weird, off. “They’re going somewhere.”

xxx

They all ended up at Steve's house. All 12 pairs of muddy, slimed shoes filed into the foyer of his Loch Nora mansion and plopped down on the floral furniture. Steve made sure everyone was intact, found blankets and pillows and snacks for the kids, then shuffled into the bathroom to clean his aching wound.

He rubbed antiseptic on his shoulder with a cotton ball, wincing as the cool liquid stung. While pressing it on his skin, he looked at his shirtless torso. The fingerprints on his neck and boot on his chest had faded, leaving light yellow traces in their wake. His nose and rib bones had healed properly, thank fuck, and a few deep bruises remained, which was a miracle considering it’d only been a couple weeks. 

He ripped the stubs off the bandaid with his teeth and pasted them on clumsily, forming a double chin against his collarbone to see the wound on his shoulder. It was nothing too severe, just a couple deep tooth marks that ran across his clavicle and around the back of his shoulder blade. 

“Good Lord, Harrington, what the fuck is this bang-up job?” Behind him, Billy snatched the first-aid kit from the bathroom counter and rifled through it. 

“Wha-” but his protests were cut off by a hiss when Billy ripped one of the small brown band-aids off and sealed a butterfly bandage on one of the tooth indents. No doubt to keep the separated skin together. Smart.

“Take it easy, man,” his tongue was stuck out in concentration. Steve was shocked by the gingerness of his meaty hands. 

“You’re always injured.”

“Can’t help it. Guess I’m accident prone.”

“Gotta be more careful, pretty boy, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

Steve’s heart flip-flopped, an unusual feeling that his cool-boy persona wasn’t used to feeling. When Billy had finished the last of his work, Steve said, “Let me patch your head next.”

Surprisingly, wordlessly, Hargrove didn’t object, just handed the first aid kit to Steve’s shaky hands and cleared the hair from his injury. He pulled the antiseptic out and began to clean it. Billy took the pain without a flinch. They were silent as Steve put a band-aid on his forehead that he knew Billy would just rip off the first chance he got.

Even after the shit show of today, his eyes were still just as vibrantly, icy blue.

“Look-”

“No.” His voice was gruff. “I’m not going to ask questions. This place… this place is fucked up, man, but-” he paused. “Whatever you’ve got goin’ on here, it doesn’t seem like my business. Seems like you’ve got it all under control.”

He closed the first aid kit and shoved it back under the counter. 

_He definitely, without a doubt, didn't have it under control, not even a little bit._

“Max talks about a girl, sometimes,” Billy continued. “Said her name is just a number, which I thought was weird, until I saw all that shit go down at the junkyard. She’s involved, right? Or, _was,_ last year before we got here?”

Steve’s tongue was at the back of his teeth in response, but Mike’s head popped around the door frame. “We’re gonna go home.”

“I thought you were staying here tonight,” his brow furrowed.

“Well, our moms are probably wondering where we are, and we don’t need Hopper all worked up, stormin’ in here tonight. Besides, Dustin still needs to clean the blood off his carpet.”

_Shit, he forgot about the cat._

He followed them all out of his house, and watched as they pulled their bikes off the stucco wall and yelled goodbye. Even on a skateboard, Max easily kept up, laughing with the gang as Lucas ran into a tin trash can on the street.

The street lights lined the road as far as Steve could see, quiet yellow orbs that shone down on the pavement. It made him feel unsettled, the hair raising on the back of the neck.

_Something was watching, something was-_

  
  
“Have you eaten yet?” Billy came up next to him, face strained and mouth upturned. 

“What? Why does that-” They’d been with each other for hours now, and Steve knew that _Billy knew he hadn’t, so-_

“Just answer the question, nerd.”

“Umm,” Steve paused, thinking. _When had he eaten last?_ He had half a banana nut muffin for breakfast… yesterday.

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

“Is Bronco’s open late on weekends?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been there.”

Billy’s jaw hit the ground. “You’ve never been there?! For fucks sake, Harrington, you’ve lived here your whole life!”

“My parents never took me there. We always did Tina’s or Milt’s or some fancy shit.”

“That’s no excuse!” Billy wrenched open his door, putting his foot on the runner. “Get in.”

Steve hesitated, but then jogged around the Camaro and got in the passenger seat. 

“Don’t touch anything, Max’ll be mad if she find out anyone else’s been in her seat.”

The corners of his lips turned up, leaning back and spreading his legs, relaxing. “I’m not scared of her.”

“I am,” Billy said as they pulled onto the road. 

Bronco’s was a small, neon-lit dive in the corner of Hawkins and nowhere that served greasy, gritty food, and Steve loved every bit of it. 

The two of them joked and laughed and Steve even snorted coca-cola out his nose when Hargrove shot the wrapper of a straw at an unassuming couple in the booth next to them.

He didn’t know who Hargrove _\- Billy -_ really was, but he suspected he was beginning to find out.

xxx

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually by the time I’m posting a chapter, I have half of the next chapter done. Confession! I haven’t started on chapter 7 yet. Not one word. So, it might be a little longer than usual before you hear from me or this story again. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Steve always had been reprimanded for being too oblivious."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Thanks sm for reading!

Wednesday November 7, 1984

_“What the fuck?”_

Steve sat in his Bimmer, looking between the pelting rain drops on his windshield at a hunched over girl sitting on the Hawkins High School curb.

It was Max. Her red hair was stringy from the rain, falling down her arms and jacket as she hid her face in her forearms. Her knees were supporting her folded frame, and her skateboard was discarded next to her.

Even without seeing her face, he could see that she was cold - and sad. If Steve was sitting out in this rainstorm, he probably would have been too.

He just wanted to go home and take a scalding hot shower to get the sweat off him from practice, but he could feel empathy rising in him, up his throat and wrapping around his heart.

After the ‘demodog situation’ last week, she’d stopped glaring at him and started to smile and throw a little wave his way when they passed. She stopped treating him like a stranger and started to recognize him - as a friend.

Nowadays, those were hard to come by.

“Max!” Before he could stop himself, his voice was yelling across the parking lot. His body was partially out of his car, legs chilling through the thin basketball shorts he still had on. He hadn’t bothered to shower in the locker room, and he was glad, because his hair would have been immediately ruined by the precipitation.

She lifted her head to look up at him, and Steve couldn’t tell if those were tears or raindrops on her face. 

“Come on!” He motioned to his car, squinting to see her drenched clothing. She hesitated for a second, then swiped her board off the ground and clutched the strap of her backpack as she ran over, red converse flipping up water.

She got in the passenger seat and settled her skateboard on the ground, taking off her backpack. Steve was a little concerned about the water on his leather seats, but quickly shoved that thought out of his mind. She looked sad and waterlogged, but relieved.

“Home?” He questioned. She nodded wordlessly, and he pulled out of the parking lot onto the main road. Steve wanted to grill her, ask _where was Billy_ and _why wasn’t he driving her home_ and _why was she crying?_ He’d seen the early-morning, frigid air fights they’d get into before school started. She’d scrunch her nose and scream at him and he’d yell right back, spit flying. They probably had another knock-down-drag-out and Billy had left her to go smoke some weed in an empty field.

Now that Steve really thought about it, he didn’t see Hargrove at practice today, which was odd, because Billy hadn’t missed one yet. Did Max know that he wasn’t there?

But he didn’t want to pry - she sniffled quietly as she looked at the blur of passing trees and he thought he’d better keep his mouth shut. She seemed vulnerable and delicate and Steve understood how it felt, more than anyone, to feel disappointed in people you love - or, should love.

The ten minute drive passed quickly as he traveled, one hand on the wheel. He fidgeted with the heater, set to lukewarm cold, and plucked a string off his jacket as he tried not to glance over at her. The ends of her hair began to curl as it dried, showing vibrant red split ends.

The noise of water against rubber kept a hum of white noise that lulled him into a low peace. Rain pelted the roof of the car like a lullaby. His car, _his baby,_ drove like a dream in the wet condition. He listened to the easy purr of the engine as they made a left turn and entered a residential area.

It was just as he was pulling onto Max’s street that he realized - how did he know where they lived? The small, white house came into view as his tire splashed a puddle.

_Did Max think it was weird that he knew, without directions, how to get there?_

If she did, nothing was said. He guided his Bimmer to the curb and put it in park, still silent. Max didn’t move, just kept her head down, face partially hidden by her fiery hair. 

Steve awkwardly gripped the back of his neck, heart racing like a fucking schoolgirl. “Well, I-”

“Thanks for the ride, Steve.”

His eyebrows shot to the moon, and he was glad she didn’t see. “Hey, no problem.” He paused. “I take Dustin and the others home, like, three times a week, so if you ever need a ride, just let me know.” He gave her a small, almost bashful smile. He didn’t need to pretend to be cool around her, to put up his charade. She was different. 

Max smiled back tightly, then exited his car and jogged up the crumbling driveway, clutching the jacket hood to her head.

Billy’s Camaro stuck out like a sore thumb in the driveway. 

xxx 

_Thursday November 8, 1984_

“You brought Max home yesterday.” He raised his head to see Billy standing on the opposite side of the lunch table, tray in hand. Robin huffed in annoyance as the story she was telling had just been rudely interrupted. Her face was red with exasperation as she’d been all worked up about the overbearing relatives staying at her house. 

“Yeah.” Steve said warily, eyeing him.

Billy licked his teeth, eyes hooded with darkness, but also something that threw Steve off-guard, because it wasn’t anger, _so what-_

“Hey, shithead, either park your ass or keep walkin’.” Robin voiced beside him, bared teeth and jovial eyes. But Billy ignored her, _or didn’t hear her,_ because his focus was pinpointed on Steve’s gaze. 

Steve was shocked that she wasn’t intimidated by someone like Billy. He was a head taller than her, all sharp edges and glass-cutting glares. Even the way he walked echoed through the school, like thunder. 

But, she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. Anyone except Heather, who wouldn’t even give her the time of day. Maybe that was Steve’s problem - he cared too much about others' opinions of him.

After a second, Billy tossed his tray on the table and sat across from them. The chain draping out of the faded jeans he wore _clinked_ along the bench, boots thumping on the ground as he sat.

“Okayyyy,” Robin drawled, looking him up and down. Steve said nothing, couldn’t, like his tongue was wedged in his throat. “Anyway, they wanted to use my whole bathroom…” she began her story again, ignoring Billy and shoving an orange wedge into her mouth.

But he wasn’t listening anymore. Billy looked at him as he took a large bite of bean burrito and flashed him a wide smile, teeth covered in beans and cheese, tortilla spilling out of the side of his mouth. Steve snickered at him silently, eyes crinkling, looking down at his tray.

Neither of them saw Robin, who had stopped talking, roll her eyes with a smile.

xxx

After that, things seemed to change between them.

Or maybe they already had, Steve didn’t know. He tried to think of when they had stopped avoiding each other, but he couldn’t recall. Was it the quarry that caused the shift in hatred they both had for each other? Or was it that night on his parent’s bedroom balcony when Billy begrudgingly shared his drink with him?

Steve always had been reprimanded for being too oblivious.

He felt someone _smash_ into his shoulder. He hit the ground _hard,_ hard enough to rattle the teeth in his head, elbow slamming against the floor. Through ringing ears, he heard his coach blow the whistle and yell something. He saw stars as his hands cradled the crown of his head gingerly.

Dazed, he looked up to find Tommy, smirking down at him with snake eyes. He tried to find his tongue, to yell _something,_ but he had to force his lungs to work first, and that was going to take a _second-_

But then, Billy was standing over him and yelling something of his own, gruff growl drowning out his coach’s midwestern drawl. 

“What do you think this is, Hagan? If you’re gonna pull shit like that, wrestling practice is down the hall, and it’s a pussies-only invite. Get your shit together.” Billy’s position over his prone body blocked Steve’s view of Tommy’s face, but he knew Hagan was pissed. 

He’d probably thought that Billy would be on his side. Tommy didn’t know that they’d spent the last few days eating lunch together. And, that Billy had unintentionally talked him off a ledge a month ago. 

Truth be told, even Steve was surprised that Billy had defended him. Blatantly, obviously defended him in front of the whole varsity basketball team. And he didn’t know how to feel about it. 

He stood, walking around Billy’s unmoving, solid frame as Billy and Tommy stared each other down. He shot Tommy a nasty look of his own and bumped shoulders with him as they resumed the play. 

The rest of the practice went without incident. Steve got a couple solid shots in, and his coach seemed at least satisfied with him today.

In the locker room, they stood under separate shower heads right next to each other and didn’t say a word. The other teammates jostled around each other and made farting noises with their armpits, but both boys remained silent. Steve felt weird and out of place, like, if he spoke, the voice that would come out of his mouth wouldn’t be _his._ He just wouldn’t know what to say.

There was no contempt, no anger, no snarky remarks - just passive silence. They dressed, lockers only 2 doors away, and exited the school, shoulder to shoulder, Billy’s denim jacket brushing against the cotton of Steve’s tee, and went separate ways to get home.

xxx

_Friday November 9, 1984_

Ronald Floss.

Steve’s parents had signed him up for therapy twice a week one afternoon, years ago, when they had shown rare concern for him. 

He didn’t actually know the reasoning behind it - his parents probably didn’t want to deal with his problems and were fine to let someone else do it. Just another example of Steve’s very unnurtured childhood. His parents didn’t care about his issues, didn’t want to hear his problems.

No wonder he had so many.

Dr. Floss was a short man, round glasses and even rounder belly. Steve’s sessions began scheduled as twice a week, but over the years, had slowly been decreased. Now, as a senior in high school, his sessions were only once a month. Once, he’d phoned the shrink’s office with a fake voice to get them canceled, but his father had found out and given him a vicious lashing. 

After that, he’d decided that a few hours of heart-to-heart a week wasn’t as bad as a bloody face. 

Not too long ago when he was heavily into drugs, ecstasy and the drip, was when he needed Ron the most. And, admittedly, he was a lot of help during the worst parts of Steve’s self-deprecating spirals. He was also one of the reasons he had stopped using, for the most part.

So, in any other situation, he’d typically hate someone like Ron - someone who tried to delicately pick apart his brain, someone that’d made Steve recognize his unhealthy habits and face the consequences of his drug-binges and alcoholic raves. 

But, he had a lot of respect for the therapist. Ron had been there for him when no one else was, not even his own mother.

Hated the sessions with a fiery passion, yes, because it was like pulling teeth, but appreciated Ron’s willingness to keep him - rude, snarky, and embarrassingly exposed - as a patient.

His appointment was supposed to be 2 weeks ago, but he’d rescheduled; he didn’t think his face had healed enough to go unnoticed, and Ron didn’t know about the abuse. 

Steve didn’t want him to. 

No Friday basketball practice meant that Steve got the _privilege_ of spending his afternoon with his therapist, emotionally wrenched open and backed into a corner like a scared puppy. 

_Vulnerability,_ Ron called it. 

_Bullshit,_ Steve thought. 

He pulled his Bimmer into the diagonal street parking, stepping out. Dr. Floss’s practice was located kitty-corner to Melvald’s General, the pink brick looming over him as the settled storm dripped rain from the sky, low and glooming. It made Steve feel on edge, but it also fit the tone in his chest. 

It was going to be a bleak afternoon, and the sky knew it too. 

“Hi Luana,” he greeted quietly at the front desk. Luana raised her head and smiled. 

“Steve, welcome back.” She motioned to the chairs. “Dr. Floss is almost done, take a seat hon.”

His knee bounced as he sat, ribs long healed but uncomfortable in the plastic chair. He shifted and that made it worse, the bones stabbing into the tissue along his spine, and he huffed, trying to settle. 

He hostilely eyed the others in the waiting room. If someone he knew saw him here, he’d be done for. His reputation destroyed. It was bad enough that he had to come here. If someone from school knew he had a shrink, his life would be over-

“Steven.” Dr. Floss’s warm, quiet voice rang out, and Steve’s hair _whooshed_ as he lifted his head. “Are you ready?” 

He nodded jerkily and stood, following the doctor down the stark white hallway, past doors and doors of brown wood. 

It was ominous and Steve remembered how much he _really disliked_ being here. 

They sat in Ron’s office. He was able to hide his fidgeting hands in his lap as Ron silently looked over the folder, no doubt reviewing the last session. 

If Steve remembered correctly, they talked about him disguising his crippling self-esteem as a rather large ‘God Complex’, and how detrimental it was for his long term mental health. 

Steve told him he was doing the old shtick of ‘fake it til you make it’.

Ron told him that pretending to be someone else in the most formative years of his life could lead to lifelong self-imagery issues. 

The time before that, they discussed how Steve was going to take his rebellion in school and turn it into something of value, and how, even as an insurgent student, his thoughts and opinions still mattered. 

That’d been the day before he tried to take his life at the quarry. 

Apparently, that session didn’t impact him like Ron had wanted.

“Steve?” He came back to the present, blinking. “Are you with me today?” Dr. Floss’s concerned brown eyes met his. 

Not off to a good start. 

“Yeah, hi.” He scrubbed at the back of his neck with a fist, awkward and apologetic. “Sorry.”

“That’s alright, Steven. Your thoughts are important, whether they're negative or positive.” He set the folder down and leaned back. “How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been good,” Steve lied through his teeth. “Ya know, busy.”

“Yes, I do know. Basketball season means a lot to you.”

“Yeah,” Steve confirmed. “Keeps my mind busy too, so I’m not just home alone.”

“Yes,” a pause. “Have you heard from your parents recently?” 

Steve tried not to choke on his tongue. “They were around a couple weeks ago, but they won’t see Hawkins for a while now.”

Dr. Floss hummed, wheels turning, looking at him. He felt bare, naked. 

“What about school?”

“It’s good too. My grades are decent. History is hard, but I’ve got a good teacher.” He hesitated. “I made a new friend.”

Ron’s eyes lit up. “Oh, good for you! A genuine one?” He knew all about Steve’s sought-after, cool-boy facade, knew that Steve struggled to be authentic with others, especially when shitty high school kids just wanted to be around him because he was the most popular boy in Hawkins.

Steve nodded. “Her name‘s Robin. I met her in the parking lot one day after school, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

Ron’s eyes glowed. “I’m glad to hear that. Friends are vital to our social progression, as we’ve discussed.” Another pause. “What about the others? That Hagan boy, what’s he up to?”

He debated telling him about Billy, but decided against. It wasn’t like they were friends or anything - Steve hadn’t even seen him at lunch today, or in the hallway between any classes.

His skin prickled at the thought of Tommy Hagan worming his way into Steve's therapy session though. “I don’t know. I see him at practice, and we interact on the court, but that’s about it.”

Ron nodded resolutely. “That may be for the best.”

He wasn’t quite sure what Dr. Floss meant by _that,_ but before he was able to ask, they moved on.

“What about Ted’s daughter, Nancy, right? Are you still dating?”

His heart dropped. “No.”

“I see.” He took off his glasses and placed them on his desk. “Would you like to discuss it?”

“We just stopped talking one day, and then, that was it. I guess it was official, because she was rubbing up on someone else, like, three days later.”

“I’m sorry to hear.” Ron said. “How do you feel about that?”

“Fine, I guess. I don’t want to waste my time if she doesn’t want me anymore.” That was far from the truth, but he was out of answers. 

“Change can be one of our greatest weapons, but it can also be detrimental if we let it. We need to learn to adapt to change. Do you think, now that you’re not in a relationship, you’ve made changes to your routine?”

_He was in a relationship - a glorious, blissful one with his father’s aged scotch._

“I guess so. I feel more…” Steve searched for the right word. “Independent,” he settled with.

“That’s great.” Ron said, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “But you don’t feel in control. I can see it in your face. We can’t control what others do, we can only control ourselves. You aren’t responsible for your first thought, but-“

“-you are responsible for your second thought and your first action, yeah.” Steve finished with a huff. 

“Exactly. Outside of those parameters, nothing else matters in the moment, because you are controlling all that you can. Perspective, remember?”

Steve nodded. 

“You’ve been able to stay clean, Steve?” His voice comes out quiet, not at all accusatory like Steve thought it would be. 

“Yes,” he nodded, head too heavy for his neck. _If you didn’t count the party he had last month._

“I heard you got arrested.” Ron’s voice was still kind and curious. 

“Just a holding cell,” Steve whispered. The skin on the back of his hands felt too tight, on the back of his neck and around his jaw. 

“What was that about?” Steve couldn’t answer, his esophagus working in overdrive to swallow the spit that had accumulated in his mouth. He probably looked like a fish with his mouth gaping. He wondered if Ron knew more than he was letting on - it sounded like it. 

“I’ve seen you as a patient for years and years, Steve. I’ve stuck around longer than _all_ of your nannies.” He chuckled good-naturedly. “I’m just trying to help.” 

Steve knew that. _He did._

Ron could probably see his stunned, constipated expression, but was relentless.

“Have you heard of the term ‘blind spot’ before? It’s not just a driving term. Us, as humans, have blind spots. Sometimes, we can’t see outside of our own thinking. For example, I can see how any type of illegal drug you use affects you badly. Maybe you can’t, because you’re the focus. I’m on the outside looking in, and that makes all the difference.”

Steve stared, anxiety trickling down his spine. He’d heard it all before, the last time Ron thought he’d been using.

He snuck a glance at his watch. _3:37._ Almost there. 

Ron looked at him for a moment, maybe too long. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on, Steve.”

Steve swallowing, palms sweating. “I know.”

Dr. Floss kept looking, brows furrowed. Steve’s hands shook. _Please._ Ron made a sort of noise that made Steve’s heart clench.

“How do you feel?” Panic clawed up his neck, much like heartburn. His chest was so cold it felt _hot,_ so hot his veins were an icy inferno.

“Steve, how are you feeling?” Ron’s voice was sticky sweet, like honey, kindness lacing every word.

“I- I don’t-”

“How _are you,_ Steve?” 

“I don’t know!” He yelled, throwing his arms into the air. “I don’t know. One second, I’m laughing and smiling and having a grand fucking time, and the next, I’m trying to keep the skin from falling off my bones. I’m just-” he huffed, glaring at Ron’s passive expression, _almost like he was expecting this, an outburst._ “I used to love school. I used to get off on the idea that everyone there either wanted me or wanted _to be me._ Now, I don’t know.” He paused, exasperated. “I don’t want to be the cool kid, or the popular boy, or the King… I just want to be me. Steve Harrington.”

_He wanted people to accept him for Steve._

Ron smiled, a haunting, ghostly thing that shot to his core. “Progress, Steve.”

As he left in the rain, shoulders all hunched in, he thought that was not progress at all. 

He chainsmoked a pack of Camels on his way back to Loch Nora and the storm continued on. 

xxx


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But it didn’t matter, because everyone in this school now thought he was using again, and who cared that he’d sacrificed so much to be himself, clean again, about the truth - gossip was so much better than the truth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiii! I’m back ;) It’s been a while! 
> 
> In the next few chapters, the relationship you’ve all been waiting for will really get moving, so stay tuned!
> 
> Thanks for reading! All mistakes are my own.

_Wednesday November 14, 1984_

All things considered, Steve’s day had started off pretty good. 

He and Robin sat in his car before school began, watching the rain drizzle down on his windshield. They were both on taxi duty this morning, as Robin’s sister had early morning band practice and Dustin and his friends had AV club.

They talked about new music and family and Steve’s nicely recovered wounds and everything in between. They also talked about the new mall that would be ready next year. Robin told him that she would never be able to afford anything in there, and he reassured her that they’d swipe his mother’s pocketbook. 

The conversation was domestic and grounding and everything Steve needed. 

They went to the first period of the day, which was Geography. Luckily, they shared the period; Steve wouldn’t have been able to endure Mr. Polanski’s compass lectures without her doodling cartoons next to him. Today’s class, though, was a film about World War One, and while depressing, he was able to relieve some of the tension in his spine unnoticed in the back of the classroom while she picked at her nails next to him.

In English class, Mrs. Rutherford gave him an A- on his essay, which had been a Hail Mary considering he’d written it the day before it was due. 

Lunch was the usual, playful banter that always ensued; Robin tried to convince him to steal Mary Kate’s cooked carrots - _because she loved them, for some unholy reason_ \- and he tried to dodge all the pining freshman girls. Last week, he and Robin hid behind a pillar the whole lunch hour when word had gotten out about his freshly-cut hair. 

But today, though, he realized he was going to be late for math. He was still trying to uphold his status after all, so the timing on his arrival was very important. Couldn’t be too early or too late. Too early would be nerdy, but too late could result in extra homework or detention. 

It wasn’t like he was actively trying to remain cool, but the title seemed to be sticking, for now. He wasn’t doing anything to seek the attention of his peers. His popularity was floating over his head, and he wasn’t trying to boost it.

Deep in thought about the excuse he was going to concoct for his tardiness, Steve turned the corner to find the halls completely empty - except for Vice Principal Culliver and, of course, Billy Hargrove. 

And, just like that, his stomach dropped and so did his happy attitude. 

He was versed well enough in the department of body language to conclude that the conversation was heated. He would have expected nothing less. It was Billy, after all, and that kid had a temper as bad as they came. 

It was right as he saw Culliver rip something from the blonde man’s hands, though, that his legs sprinted down the hallway on their own accord. Her nasally voice pitched in disgust as the sounds began to reach Steve’s ears. 

With one hand clutching the strap of the backpack resting on his back, he caught a glimpse of a clear baggie as Culliver tucked her hand behind her lumbering frame.

Steve knew, more than anyone, what the clear baggie meant.

_Shit, Hargrove._

“Hello, V.P. Culliver, looking as lovely as ever. New eye shadow?” He slipped into the conversation effortlessly, hoping his fake bravado didn’t reveal the panic that sat below the surface of his skin. She whirled around to lecture him, anger in the lines of her faces. 

“Mr. Harrington, this doesn’t involve you-”

“Actually it does, because that’s mine. Those are mine.” Behind Ms. Culliver, Billy’s mouth dropped open as he stared, disbelief filling the stony vacancy of his face and replaced the defensive twist of his nose. 

“Steven-” she started, but he steamrolled on, trading his happy-go-lucky attitude for more of a serious one.

“We’ve done this before, Ms. Culliver. Based on my amazing track record,” he coughed, _because it wasn’t amazing at all - it was terrible._ “You know it’s mine. He,” Steve threw his hand in Billy’s direction, who was standing silent, “doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Explain to me why I should believe any of your pathetic lies. The drugs were in Mr. Hargrove’s possession.” She demanded. 

Sweat broke out on the back of his neck, but he couldn’t stop now. 

“It’s _not_ his.” Steve insisted, low. “I asked him to hold it for me during lunch. That bitch of an aide watches me like a hawk.” The lie was weak, but Ms. Culliver already had prejudiced feelings towards Steve, and she bought it easily.

Behind her, Billy didn’t make a peep.

“I thought you would have learned your lesson from the last time, you little shit,” she sneered, bulbous nose scrunching. “I’m calling Jim.”

“I’ve already dealt with the Sheriff’s office about it, okay? I had to spend the night in a fucking holding cell.”

The gaggle of teachers that had accumulated in clumps around them crossed their arms and turned up their noses in disapproval.

Like none of them had ever done drugs. Yeah fucking right. 

“We have a strict no-drugs campus, Mr. Harrington, you know this. _It’s policy._ Principal Michaels will have to deal with you on Monday when he gets back from his conference in Warren. For now, you’re suspended, effective immediately.” She tightened her grip on the clear baggie and spat, “Get out of my school, Harrington.”

He scoffed and pivoted on his feet, pushing through onlookers and teachers alike. He walked down the hall towards the exit, while so many sets of eyes watched him as he left, lasering through classroom door windows or heads poking out of the toilet room. He could feel it, _the attention,_ could see it in his peripheral vision as he marched down the hallway, fuming. 

This time, the attention was unwanted. He hated it. 

Part of him was surprised that Hargrove wasn’t throwing a big fucking stink about Steve taking his ‘limelight’ or ‘stealing his moment’ or whatever. The other part of him, the rational part, wasn’t surprised at all. That kid would do anything to avoid the law. 

Culliver yelled after him, “and keep your nose clean, you junkie!”

He was so stupid. _Why did he just do that?_ Nobody asked him to defend that dick. He just did it - didn’t think twice before he jumped in there. Steve didn’t consider himself any sort of hero, and he’d sure as hell let anybody _stupid enough_ to bring drugs onto school campus be punished for it.

_So why did he just stick his neck out for someone, especially someone who wouldn’t have done it for him?_

But that was the catch - Billy _would have done it for him,_ had done it time after time already, had stuck his neck out for Steve when he didn’t need to.

His anger wasn’t directed at Billy, or Vice Principal Cunt-iver. He wasn’t even frustrated with himself, not really. He’d stood up for Hargrove, which is typically considered brave.

He was just - _fed up._

Steve felt red hotness in his chest as he shoved the front door open. He was glad to be out of there - his footsteps reverberated around the hallway like a bad omen. 

The ground was wet from this morning’s rainstorm, but his mind was elsewhere as he narrowly avoided a puddle. The backpack slung around his back felt like a thousand pounds of rocks. He felt heavy, weighed down.

“Harrington! Wait up!” But he didn’t slow his gait one bit as his jaw clenched. Billy’s boots pounding on the pavement behind him echoed around in his skull.

“Shit, Steve, where’s the fire?” Billy heaved, falling into step beside him, but remained nearly jogging to keep up. 

“That’s what you get for doing crack, Hargrove.” His voice sounded pretentious and condescending, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “A shitty pair of lungs.”

The cool air felt good on Steve’s heated face, could keep him grounded long enough to get home. But Billy ignored his remark as he pulled his denim jacket around him tighter, trying to keep up with his stride.

“It’s not like you haven’t hit a blunt before, daddy-issues.”

Steve felt fire exit his ears at the nickname, but didn’t let too much heat escape through his mouth when he responded, “but I never brought it on school campus, fucker.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Steve knew exactly what he meant, but still replied with a “what?”

“Don’t act stupid, shithead.” Billy hissed.

“They can’t touch me.” His breath came out in a huff. “My parents own more than a quarter of the land in this county, plus real estate. They could destroy anyone in that school, especially a peon like Culliver, and she knows it too.” He reached his car and yanked the door open, pulling his key out of the keyhole. 

“You’re not an idiot, Harrington. You just got fuckin’ _suspended,_ so I don’t _understand-“_

Steve whirled around to face him, hair flopping around as he did so. 

“You don’t get it, Cali boy. I run this school. ‘King Steve’ isn’t just a nickname, it’s a fact. With my parent’s fancy status and wealth looming over me like a shadow, no teacher or administrator is going to ever press anything against me!”

But Billy was closer than he’d initially thought, and when he turned, their faces were only inches apart.

His face was passive, but Steve could imagine a thousand things bouncing around in the other man’s head, all sluts and cigarettes and cuss words and shitty insults. 

_He knew what he was getting into before he decided to take the fall, so why did it still sting?_

Because Steve didn’t do drugs anymore, that’s why. It took so much effort for him to become clean, so many nights of shaking and red-eyed cold turkey mornings. 

Being a consistent, needy, obsessive user created a crater in him that felt nothing at all. He felt hollow and worthless and unloved, so he quit, _finally,_ pushed the bad habits and worse thoughts aside and became clean. His only support system may have been Ron, but that was all he needed. 

He had flushed the worst of the kush and tossed the paraphernalia out with Thursday’s trash run and, for days on end, holed himself up in the guest house washroom in his backyard and shook and moaned and clawed at his skin with blunt nails until he was bloody and sober. 

And nobody even cared, even noticed, that he had disappeared for a few days. 

Now, the only drug he took was melatonin, but that was a pussy’s drug. Even painkillers were too risky, with his proneness to addiction.

But it didn’t matter, because everyone in this school now thought he was using again, and who cared that he’d sacrificed so much to be himself, _clean again,_ about the truth - gossip was so much better than the truth.

Billy’s eyes were just as vibrant as that day at the quarry, but Steve was close enough - closer than he’d ever been, probably - to see more. He saw confusion, swirling like sparkling champagne through the almost-invisible spots of green.

He was right - something had changed between them. They weren’t petty high school rivals anymore. They were on the same side, just trying to keep their heads above the water. 

They’d been fighting the same battle all along. 

Whether it’d been drugs or abusive parents or a shithole lifestyle, they’d been going through the same shit in separate lives.

Steve’s knees became weak and his back gently hit the cant rail of his Bimmer. Billy was placed on the opposite side of the Bimmer’s opened door, still looking at him, head cocked to the side as if he were thinking.

It seemed like there’d been a hundred unsaid things between them, like both of them had been biting their tongues for too long, and now blood coated the insides of their mouth and slicked their teeth.

It was almost as if there was an insurmountable ocean between them, miles and miles of waves that they’d never be able to understand and Steve was drowning - but for now, he decided he was going to keep trying to tread water. 

“You wanna come over?” Steve asked, almost numb, swiping his left hand through his hair to diffuse the situation.

Billy continued to stare into his eyes, confused but also smiling, all lopsided and closed-lipped. Steve thought he wasn’t going to agree, _because why would he,_ but then-

“Okay.”

And neither of them even gave a second thought to the last two classes that Billy was going to miss. 

xxx

“The last time I was here, we talked about herpes.”

“Yeah, well, the last time you were here, I also went to jail.” Steve knew it was actually that night, after the Demodogs tried to eat them, but didn’t want to bring it up.

“Holding cell,” Billy absentmindedly corrected him, running his hand along the spotless banner of Steve’s Loch Nora mansion stairs. 

“According to Hopper, it _should_ have been jail.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t survive in the clink. That Sheriff’s no dummy.” Both boys plopped down on the lounger in Steve’s sitting room, watching the tiny, pristine diamonds on the chandelier shake from Steve’s running AC unit.

“Hah. You know I can throw a mean sucker if I have to.”

“So can I.”

Steve thought for a second. “You’re right. If I ever need to show someone who’s boss, I’ll just sic you on ‘em. Keep my hands clean.”

“I’m not doing your bidding, bitch.”

“Yeah well, what are friends for then?”

“We are not friends.” Billy deadpanned.

“You literally almost beat the shit out of Tommy _on my behalf,_ Billy.”

“That asshole had it comin’,” Billy ducked his head. 

“You talked me back to life on the floor of the arcade, when I had those fucked up ribs!”

“Rib injuries are the worst, I know- _what’s your point,_ Steve?” The blonde haired man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, shoulders hunching defensively. 

Steve relaxed into the couch in a huff, almost defeated. “I’m just sayin’, we’re friends now.”

Billy snorted, and the tension diffused from his shoulders. “I guess there've been worse things I’ve been called.”

“It’s an honor to be my friend!” Steve protested. “Welcome to my reign. It comes with extra apple crumble cups at lunch and premier parking. Front row.” He put on a playboy smile, cocky. 

Billy’s frame looked right at home in Steve’s couch, back melted into the cushions. “Then I’m glad to be here.” But Steve caught the sarcasm.

“Are you?” His voice came out quiet. 

“What?”

“Glad to be here, in Hawkins?” Billy looked at him for a second, uprooted. His mouth opened once, then closed as if whatever he was going to say ran away from his brain. Steve’s head ducked down, and Billy’s followed suit, both men entranced in picking the lint of their jeans. 

After a second, Billy stood. “I’m sure dinners almost ready, and if I’m late again, Neil’ll kill me.” 

Steve followed him out of the ornate front door and watched him walk down his driveway. The blonde man flipped him a wave and a holler, then left. 

He stood on his porch, concrete chilling his toes, and watched Billy’s car roar down his street, becoming quieter and quieter, until all he could hear was crickets, and smiled. 

His feet were frozen, but his heart was warm and fluttery. 

It was the first night in a while he didn’t shake himself to sleep. 

xxx

_Friday November 16, 1984_

Steve heard word of Bob Newby’s death, surprisingly, from Nancy.

They sat on the high school football stadium bleachers, wind whipping around them and messing up both of their hair. He wasn’t supposed to be here, but the tone in Nancy’s voice when she called made him, against all of his senses, meet her here. 

She’d phoned his home and told him to meet her because she wanted to talk. He hoped to hell it wasn’t the closure he’d looked for for weeks after they called it quits. Steve wanted to tell her to shove it, but her voice sounded panicked and flustered, more flustered than he’d ever heard her, certainly more emotion than she had ever shown in any aspect of their relationship - so, reluctantly, he agreed. 

He hadn’t realized the negative thoughts he still harbored for Nancy. Even now, as she looked exhausted to the bone and more, he had to consciously keep his upper lip from scrunching in distaste. 

“Holy shit.”

“Terrible, huh? Joyce watched it happen and everything. He was just…” she sniffled, wiping her face. “He lost his life to save them.”

“And then what?" Steve’s body shuddered. It was almost snow season, and despite the dropping temperatures, his current shaking wasn’t weather-related.

“Well, Will’s body, or mind, or something… had been possessed by the mindflayer. They met us at the gate and we went back to the Byer’s house. We tied Will up and he communicated via morse code to tell us we needed to close the gate.”

“The gate? What gate?” _Completely ignoring the fact that they tied the poor kid up._

“We don’t know. Hopper and Joyce are still trying to figure that out,” she paused, shuffling her seat. “But, I think it will be easier now, because Eleven’s back.”

“Eleven? You mean that little witch that has powers ‘n stuff?”

“Isn’t that what a witch is?” Nancy scrutinized.

“I-” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “Where has she been?”

“In the Sheriff’s cabin. She’s been living there for a year! Nobody knew about it except for Hopper. And Mike, that little twerp, went all batshit insane on him. Apparently, him and Eleven are in love.” Her nose twitched.

“Shit.” He repeated.

“Yeah. She must’ve been missing the last couple of days, though, because Hopper had some choice words for her.”

“Well, she has fucking fantastic timing, because she’ll have to close the gate, right?” His fingers flew up to make quotation marks around the word ‘gate’. “She’s probably the only one who can.”

Nancy’s gaze hit the horizon, the setting sun casting a yellow haze across her face. His fingers wanted to reach up and touch her golden eyelashes, but they were too busy clutching the edge of the frigid metal bleachers where the two were sitting. “I met a guy though, Murray. He’s an investigative journalist. He thinks we can expose Hawkins Lab for all the shady shit that goes on there.” 

She paused, as if she was waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t, so she shot him a skittish look. “He was, uh, hired by Barbara’s parents.” Her head ducked down, hair hiding her face for just a moment.

Fear shot through Steve’s core, paralyzing his esophagus. _He’d forgotten all about Barb._

She continued to look at him as he tried to process, trying to gauge his reaction. All this shit that was going on was _actually real,_ because people were _losing their lives_ for it now, and he’d been in a _fucking junkyard_ with a bunch of _middle schoolers_ only weeks ago, _putting their lives in fucking danger-_

“I heard you got suspended.”

He looked over at her, and their eyes met. 

“Melissa said it was because you got caught.”

Steve didn’t know what to say. “Yeah.”

She paused, trying to tuck her blowing hair behind her ears. “I know those drugs weren’t yours.”

“Yeah, well.” he stopped, because he didn’t have anything to defend himself with. _He didn’t have an argument, because he didn’t even know why he did it._

They sat in silence for another minute, watching the sun set behind the mountains in the distance.

“Anyway, that’s the rundown.” She mumbled, straightening her spine and smoothing her hands over her skirt. “You better go, before you get seen here.” He could hear the disapproval in her voice at his suspension, but his brain was still having a difficult time processing everything. He sighed quietly, bewildered and sad and a thousand other things. 

“Poor Bob. Poor Joyce.”

“I know,” Nancy’s face melted into concern again, creasing on her forehead, making her look decades older than she really was. “My mom is taking her over a casserole. I can’t imagine losing someone so close to me.”

_She already felt bad about Barb, and now, as much as he despised her for what she did to him, he didn’t want to make matters worse-_

But, before Steve could stop himself, a small “I can” slipped out of his mouth like liquid butter, pouring on the ground and sticking to his shoes.

Nancy jerked her head up from where she was gazing at her shoes, curls bopping around her face. “Steve…”

“No, it’s okay.” He backtracked, heart racing. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I’m sor-”

“Hey, I’m gonna run, okay? Keep me in the loop with this shit show.” His legs carried him to his car, somehow through the murk of his thoughts.

As much as he disliked Nancy, _he once loved her,_ and maybe, maybe that’d been his first mistake.

xxx

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And Steve could’ve cried right there in that shitty chair, because he was trying so damn hard to be a good kid, and his high school principal, of all people, was the only one that recognized that."

_Monday November 19, 1984_

Steve didn’t even bother going to first period.

The hallways were full for a Monday morning, reassuring the fact that everyone had been clued into what was going on. He knew from experience, gossip traveled faster in Hawkins High than any STD in this town. His classmates cleared the way for him, a walkway that shot straight to the Principal’s office. Shoes shuffled and the rowdiness fell into a somber hum as Steve held his head up and walked through the parting crowd. 

He took the fall for Billy, everybody knew it, and he certainly wasn’t going to let himself regret it now. 

Steve passed Robin in the hallway, among the wall of students onlooking his march to death. She gave him a nervous glance and trailed her hand over his jacket as he passed, mouthing _good luck._

He winked, a fake, sort of pompous gesture that he wanted to give off that made those who saw it swoon. 

But really, he was gonna fuckin’ need it. 

Billy wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Maybe that was for the best. 

Ms. Culliver was there when he arrived at the Principal’s office door. 

“You’ll pay,” she hissed at him. Steve could imagine her spittle landing on his windbreaker, but he smiled tight-lipped at her and breached the threshold of the office, stepping in. Principal Michaels was sitting at his desk, scribbling something unimportant on some documents. 

“Mr. Harrington!” His voice sounded cheery, not at all like the reckoning he thought he’d be receiving. “Come in, sit. And close the door behind you.” A little bit of tension drained from Steve’s shoulders as he slipped the door closed. Culliver glared at him from the other side as he did so, and he was grateful to not have an audience for this part. 

His ass found home in the small, green-pleated chair that sat across from Michaels’s view. 

“How’ve you been, Steven?” He watched Michaels push his paperwork away and raise his eyebrows at the inquiry, nothing but kindness and compassion in the lines of his face. 

“I’ve been good.” _Debatable._

Steve was no slump, his mother raised him to be the most polite child in all of Hawkins, so he responded with an obligatory, “how was your conference in Warren?”

“Ah,” Principal Michaels dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. “You know, it’s all about logistics and stuff. Nobody cares about school district budgets, anyway.” He winked at Steve and put his pens away in his desk. A moment passed.

“Well, I won’t waste your time.” He sighed, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his mouth with his fingers. “One of the most difficult parts of my career is disciplining.” 

_Oh, shit._

“I’ve heard you’ve been in a little bit of trouble,” Michaels continued. “Is this true?”

Steve stared, not sure what to say. The assumption was fair, and probably accurate, but the whole reason he was in here was because he came to the defense of his friend. What was he supposed to say?!

“Vice Principal Culliver told me you claimed to have a baggie of drugs on campus.”

It wasn’t like he could deny it, because he’d gone through all that trouble to say it was his. But he also couldn’t claim it, because then he’d get in deep shit for something he didn’t even do. 

There was a thin line to walk here, and he had to get this just right. 

“But, they were in Mr. Hargrove’s possession, Steve, so you can see why we’re just trying to figure out what’s going on.” Principal Michaels continued to look at him, innocent curiosity on his face.

“You know my record, Principal Michaels. There’s no reason that those drugs _wouldn’t_ have been mine.” He swallowed hard. 

Michaels stared for a second before he responded, eye twitching. “But they’re not, are they?”

Steve looked down at his jeans, forcing his voice box _to do something._ He felt sweat break out on the back of his neck, a feeling he was becoming quite familiar with. “I-“

“How’s things at home, Steve?” 

_What?_

His head jerked upright, hard, hard enough to feel pressure in the back of his skull. The same, innocently passive expression remained on Michaels’s face. 

“I…” But Steve didn’t know what to say, because that had nothing to do with drugs, that wasn’t even why he was in here. 

“Vice Principal Culliver thought it best to let your parents know about your ‘supposed stint with marijuana’,” Principal Michaels took off his wire glasses and set them on the desk, rubbing his forefinger and thumb over his nose in weariness. “But they didn’t answer the line. We left a message, but who knows how reliable telephone lines are 900 or so miles away. They are visiting the Hamptons, right?”

Fear shot through him, flooded by relief. _They didn’t answer. This is good, right?_

“Yes,” Steve tried to breathe. Michaels must not know that each condo had its own landline now, and he didn’t have to phone the Resort directly-

_Or did he know?_

“Well, then,” Michaels shot Steve a smile, secretive and knowing. “You’re off the hook.”

It felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

“But what are you going to do to Billy?” He squished his fingers in his palm, nervous. 

Principal Michaels smiled, a soft sort of turn of his lips. “You were brave enough to take the fall for him, Steve, and while I wish it wasn’t concerning drugs… that was very courageous of you. High school isn’t all about homework and due dates, you know.” He paused. “You’re a good kid, Steve.”

And Steve could’ve cried right there in that shitty chair, because he was _trying so damn hard_ to be a good kid, and his high school principal, of all people, was the only one that recognized that. 

He thanked Michaels and left the office, numb and giddy all at once. He attended the last two periods of the day and minded his own business quietly and nobody asked any questions. 

xxx

He saw his father’s sleek car in the driveway and knew he was fucked. 

But, he knew they’d probably gotten the message Michaels left them, and he couldn’t avoid them forever, he knew that, and maybe they’d take it easy on him when they figured out he was just protecting another classmate.

His parents weren’t willing to listen to reason, though. 

Before Steve could even take a breath, his dad’s hand came down upon his face like a bullet, fast and hard and unforgiving. He couldn’t even register the pain for a second, the stars that swam behind his eyes were too bright. In the background, his mother’s mellow voice tried to smooth over the situation, and his father’s ragged breathing rang in his ears, pearl white teeth going on and on about Steve’s supposed drug addiction.

But then, the pain hit. 

He couldn’t stop the quiet moan that escaped past his lips. His hand came up to feel the damage, and sure as day, a slick covered the open welt that ran from his jawbone to the bottom lid of his eye. It didn’t seem too deep, and when he wiggled his cheek around, the nerves in his face seemed to be slow, but responsive, which was the best thing he could ask for right now. 

He felt a bitterness spreading in his abdomen, a fiery hatred. As he fumed, trying to get his bearing, he heard his mother calming his father down behind him. Steve whirled around, realizing his face looked bloody and raw, and the salty tears that ran down his cheeks and burned in his wound added to the situation. 

He felt like a caged wild animal, but free. 

“I hate you,” he growled through clenched teeth. “You should’ve stayed in the Hamptons.”

“Steven-“ his mother admonished softly, disappointed, but his father’s temper was full force now. 

“Get out!” He threw an expensive vase at Steve, and it collided with the wall just next to his head. Steve’s hands shot up to cover his head as shards flew around him, like an explosion. “Get the fuck out of my house! You’re nothing but a waste of air, you miserable pothead!”

Steve’s feet carried him out the front door and down the steps, right past his BMW sitting unassuming in the driveway. In hindsight, it would have been easier for him to drive, but fuck knows where his keys ended up, and he sure as hell wasn’t going back in there. 

His only guidance was the buzzing yellow light emitted by street lamps. The sidewalk was cold on his socked feet as his hand cupped the dripping gash on his face. This late in the year, especially at night, the weather was chilly, making every erratic huff of his breath a visible puff of whiteness. Mrs. Wilson’s mutt watched him from the cover of her garage as he stumbled past, trying to just _get away-_

He staggered around the block and down another never-ending sidewalk, trying to find his way out of Loch Nora through the fog in his mind. He knew Robin lived just minutes West of his house, past the train tracks, and if he could just get there, her parents were nice, and _they’d let him crash there-_

Steve was too concerned about the simple act of functioning that he didn’t even hear Billy’s Camaro pull up right behind him. 

“Harrington?” Steve whirled around, right into the man’s arms. Billy gripped his elbows to keep him steady, concern written all over his face. “Are you okay?” Through the blur of his vision, Steve realized that the other man must’ve put his sharp edges and death glares away, because the grip on his arms was stable, not crushing. 

The Camaro’s headlights shone on them bright as day, illuminating down the black street. Steve could make out half of Hargrove’s face, and in the vibrant blue of his eyes, there was a grayness in them that struck Steve's core. 

“What the hell happened?” Billy repeated, shuffling his feet to better support Steve’s declining strength. 

But Steve just looked at him. He couldn’t say anything. He was officially out of things to say. He’d bullshitted his way through the drug coverup, and he was out of answers. So he didn’t respond, he just stared into the blonde man’s concerned expression and hoped that his green eyes could convey everything he wanted to say. 

“Here,” Billy mumbled, guiding Steve to the passenger seat of his car and climbing in himself, taking it out of park and easing down the road, shooting Steve another concerned glance. 

The blast of heat from the rattling heater seemed to bring Steve back from the dead, though. 

“Why are you in Loch Nora?” He tried to swallow the tremor in his voice.

Hargrove gripped the back of his neck with a sheepish expression. “I didn’t ever get to officially say thanks for, ya know… taking the blame.”

Oh. 

But then, he was fishing around on the backseat, one hand white-knuckling the steering wheel as he found an old towel, handing it gingerly to Steve’s resting hands. “For your face.”

Steve gently pressed the crusty rag to his injury, trying to staunch the blood oozing out. By now, it’d ran down his neck and stained the collar of his shirt. 

“I guess your parents found out, huh?” For the first time ever, Steve recognized regret on Billy’s face, stark remorse outlining his sharp features. 

“My dad wasn’t too happy.” Steve coughed, pressing harder. 

A sighed ripped from Billy’s throat. “This is my fault, Steve, I’m sor-“

“No, it’s not. You didn’t ask me to take the blame for all this, I just did it.” The two boys looked at each other. 

“What are friends for?” Billy echoed him from days ago. 

_What are friends for?_

Steve looked at him like a deer in the headlights. He knew the look on his face must’ve been bizarre, but it was the first time in his life that he’d wanted to look at Billy. Just sit here and stare, watch as the heater blew his blonde curls back and how the earring dangling from his lobe shook with the engine of the roaring car. Billy’s eyes traced the road ahead and Steve’s eyes traced him.

He felt at home in this car, more at home right here in this passenger seat than his _actual home._

After a second, Billy pulled the car on the side of the dirt road they ended up on and shut it off. 

“Why are we stopped here?”

“Well,” he paused, digging around in a first aid kit he pulled out of nowhere. “We can’t go to my house, and we sure as fuck can’t go to yours right now, so I just... parked.”

The blonde man pulled out two butterfly bandages from the kit and tossed it in the back

Steve wiped his cut gently again as Billy wordlessly tore the wrappers off with his teeth, discarding the garbage in the backseat as well. As he went to grab the band-aids from Billy, he clicked his tongue. 

“Nah, I got it.” With a forefinger and thumb, he gently squished either side of Steve’s cheek and pushed them together. 

Steve gazed into Billy’s eyes as his tongue popped out in concentration, a red bud that sat between even redder lips. 

After placing the wings of two bandages over his cut, Billy leaned back to look at his handiwork. His legs were sitting in the space between each front seat, right under the manual stick, and his knees pressed against Steve’s left thigh. 

“You’re all fixed up, pretty boy,” he said. They looked into each other’s eyes. Steve recognized a longing sort-of glimmer in them, like they were almost wet, but he knew better. 

Unintentionally, Steve’s eyes flicked to Billy’s lips again, almost calling him. When he looked back up to Billy’s gaze, he knew he’d been caught. It didn’t seem to matter though, because they met in the middle, lips colliding a little too hard. 

The kiss wasn’t like other snogs Steve had had. Those had been too fast, only for the thrill, just another boost to his reputation - but this was different, oddly soft and slow for someone like Billy Hargrove. 

He opened his mouth, just a little, and Billy’s tongue entered, licking the front of his teeth and feeling along the creases of the roof of his mouth. 

It was slow and easy, and they separated seconds later, all heavy breathing in the small, confined space. Steve winced as his face was already becoming stiff from the wound. 

Billy noticed, and ran his thumb along the bandage gently. “I really am sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I’m glad I did it, my parents are just assholes.” Steve whispered. “Besides, Michaels is letting me off easy. Both of us,” he quickly corrected. 

“How did they find out?”

“Culliver tried to call them,” he whispered again, trying not to ruin the atmosphere. “Michaels said she couldn’t get ahold of ‘em, but I guess he was wrong.”

“They came all the way from the Hamptons just for this?” The confusion was evident in Billy’s voice, and Steve smothered over the wrinkled in his questioning brow with a thumb. “Haven’t you done worse stuff than a lil’ weed?”

“They must’ve come down for Thanksgiving. I don’t really know, they don’t tell me anything. I guess this all has just been shitty timing.” He absolutely dreaded the idea of spending a holiday with his parents. A heavy rock settled in his gut, low and insistent. 

Billy continued to look at him. “Shit.”

They stayed there until well after midnight, making small talk and remaining close. Steve's lips still tingled from the kiss they shared, and from how Billy kept licking his, the feeling must've been mutual.

He drove Steve home, discreetly taking back roads at a snail’s pace. Steve didn’t know if it was because Billy didn’t want him home with his parents there or because he wanted to spend more time with him but either way, Steve wasn’t complaining. 

Their hands connected and remained together over the gear shift all the way until Billy pulled up in front of Steve’s house.

“Listen, if they give you any trouble, just come over, okay? Neil can’t see you, but I’ll leave a potato crate or some shit below my bedroom window so you can climb in, and I’ll tell Max you might be coming just in case-“

“Billy,” Steve placed a hand on the other man's knee, trying to assuage his fears. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

He ignored him. “Your cheek doesn’t look too hot.”

Actually, it was hot, almost feverish to the touch. “It’s fine. I’ll be alright.” At Billy’s unconvinced nod, Steve said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

As the blue Camaro quietly purred away, he snuck past the front door and around the side of his house, feeling around in the blackness for the rose bush’s support frame and heaving himself up. He made it through his bedroom window and immediately ran to his door, latching it. He believed that he’d be able to keep quiet so his parents didn’t suspect he was here, but better safe than sorry. 

And, after an anxious night of tossing and turning, he slipped downstairs to find his house empty and spotless, as if no one had been chucking vases at his head the night before. 

xxx 

_Tuesday November 20, 1984_

“I thought I made myself clear, the last time I saw you, that you’d keep your stupid-ass nose out of narcotics, Harrington.”

Steve stopped in his tracks, because Hopper sat in his Bronco, smoking a cigarette and effectively blocking Steve’s car in the stall. 

He knew he stunk like sweat and the basketball court, but it seemed now he had bigger problems. 

“They weren’t mine! I-”

“I know, you punk. That’s not why I'm here. Get in.”

Steve blanched, feet numb as he climbed in the passenger side. 

“If you know that the drugs weren’t mine, then why-”

“That son of a bitch Hargrove better watch himself,” Jim grumbled under his breath, trying to strap his seat belt around his gut. “He ain’t in the Golden State anymore.”

“You know the drugs were Billy’s?” Steve huffed as Hopper peeled out of the parking lot, a green blur out the windows as they flew down the road. 

The two boys had just battled it out in practice, but instead of the fierce beating that usually ensued, it was more jovial competition, less elbow throws and cuss words. Instead of the muscular wall Billy usually was, he was more fluid today, purposefully letting Steve bump hips with him. As they ran down the court, they smiled and laughed at each other, even while being yelled at by their impatient coach. 

“Of course. That kid reeks of grass. Anyone a mile away could see the always-slightly-high look that is perpetually stuck to his face.” For the first time since they got in the vehicle, their eyes met. Hopper's look was incredulous, like _duh,_ but Steve didn’t get the chance to feel offended, because Hopper looked like complete shit.

Bags adorned his eyes, and his forehead now looked permanently wrinkled. He had a full beard now, untrimmed and unkempt.

Steve remembered the last time he’d been in Hop’s truck, after he’d been hauled home from that fun stint in jail. He’d thought the Sheriff looked horrible then. That was probably because, at the time and unbeknownst to Steve, he’d been trying to wrangle a 13-year old girl with powers. But now, he looked worse. So much worse.

He looked like he’d been through hell, and Steve had never been one to mince words.

“You look like shit, Sheriff Hopper.” 

He looked back at Steve’s hooded eyelids and defensive features. “Yeah, well, look at _your_ face.”

_Ditto,_ Steve thought. 

“I don’t know what kind of shit you get into at school, but the only thing Culliver mentioned was the drug situation, so I’m not gonna ask questions.”

“This didn’t happen at school,” but as Steve looked back over at the Sheriff, his eyebrows squenched together in a way that let Steve know he was thinking about it too hard. 

_Shit, I’ve said too much._

“So…” Steve started again, trying to get his bearings back together. This was the second time he’d been passively forced into someone else’s vehicle; the first time, it ended up being wonderful, amazing, Billy’s lips on his-

He doubted that would be the case this time.

“If you’re not here to haul me to jail again,” he coughed, awkwardly. “Then what are we doing?” Hopper skidded around a turn, tires squealing as pavement ended and dirt began. Steve grasped the hand rail tightly, banishing images of Hopper taking him somewhere secluded and murdering him.

“Why do you think Michaels let you off so easy, huh?”

Steve stopped breathing, stunned, realization hitting him like a ton of bricks.

Sheriff Hopper _vouched_ for him? 

Steve had been nothing but a punk for years - caused false alarms and shot illegal fireworks and dragged main with Tommy and everything in between. No doubt that the Sheriff’s office had used time and resources to check on another one of Steve’s shenanigans. _Not that they were ever busy, anyways._

“You stuck up for me?” Steve questioned. “You told Principal Michaels that those weren’t mine?”

“I told _Culliver_ those weren’t yours.” Hopper corrected. “She called me with a stick up her ass, worried because she knew Michaels wasn't going to do shit, and I told her not to worry about it, that I’d take care of it on the down low, and well,” he cleared his throat. “This is me, taking care of it.”

They pulled up to Hopper’s cabin in the woods. Steve was still confused, and kind of concerned about the Sheriff’s sanity, but followed him into the worn shack regardless. The girl, Eleven, was sitting with her legs folded on the tattered couch, and looked up when they entered.

The inside of the cabin looked mostly repaired. Steve spotted 2 bedrooms and a toilet through an ajar, wooden door. The fridge was a little beat up, but it must still be working. The lighting wasn’t great though, as towels covered up the windows.

“Eleven, this is Steve. Steve, El.” Hop introduced them, and Steve threw up a hand in a small wave. She continued to stare curiously at him, no doubt eyeing his bandaged face.

“The reason you’re here, Steve, is because we need your help. El needs your help.” Hop’s voice was gruff.

“Why the fu- heck,” at the last second, Steve censored himself in the presence of the younger girl. “Would you need _me?"_

Hopper looked uneasy, like he was uncomfortable with this whole situation, and that put Steve on edge. “It’s called sensory deprivation, and it’s a horrible form of torture, but she’ll be able to focus all her energy into finding the gate. The gate is a-”

“Nancy told me already,” Steve said incredulously. “There’s no one else you know that could help?” 

“You’ll be good enough. You’re not even a druggie. That whole stunt earlier just proved it.”

“Hop, be serious. Why _am I_ the one that has to do this?”

“Because you’re not super involved in all this shit,” the older man sighed. “Because we’re in some _deep_ shit, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, and I don’t want everyone already wrapped up in this ordeal to know of the extreme measures we’re going to take to get this done.”

But Steve read between the lines.

“Because I don’t have anyone worried about me,” he grunted. “Because I don’t have anyone to cry over my dead body if I die, right? Not like those Byers kids do, Joyce would be ruined if any of them died.”

Hopper looked defeated, exposed. “Steve…”

He got it. He really did, _and while it sucked,_ it made perfect sense.

“It’s okay, Hop. No need to explain, I get it.”

Hopper looked at the ground, boots scuffing the wood floor and hand rubbing through his beard. “You don’t have to, okay? We just thought...”

Steve knew he could demand to be taken home, and forget all this happened, and go back to his normal, shit-show of a life and everything would be fine.

Hopper defended him though. He owed Steve nothing, and still chose to stick his neck out for him just like Steve did for Billy. If he hadn’t, who knows what kind of cruel punishment that devil Culliver would’ve put him through.

He trusted the Sheriff, but wanted confirmation from the girl herself. “And you’re okay with this?” She nodded, short hair flopping around.

“It was El’s idea,” Hop pitched in behind him. “I can’t do it because I’m the Chief of the Sheriff’s department. If I make myself scarce around town, people’ll notice.”

Steve thought. He tried to weigh his pros and cons, but the problem was he _couldn’t really find any of either,_ so he said, “Okay. When do we start?”

xxx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk. kind of a weird ending. chapter 10 will be up in about a week. :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why don’t you feel bad, Steve? What happened in your childhood that made you so emotionally fucked up?” Nancy hissed, trying to dig under his skin, get her salty tears in the open wounds on his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being patient for this chapter! It took longer than expected because I wrote the whole thing, hated it, then deleted like 70% of it and started over. Whoops!

_Thursday November 22, 1984_

Thanksgiving was never a holiday Steve or his family recognized, which was fine by him because he didn’t care for it anyways. 

Joyce welcomed him into her house with open arms though, and although he was considerably taller than she was, her lengthy limbs wrapped around him like a vice. He’d only talked to her once or twice previously, but she was inviting and immediately loving and everything he’d thought a mother, _a real mother,_ to be. 

He wasn’t family, not even close, but as the resident chauffeur to Dustin’s gang, the children demanded his presence. The way Nancy kept glancing at him as the stuffing was passed around the table, she must’ve mentioned something as well. 

He was sat between Hopper and Dustin. The older man seemed right at home to pile his plate with the feast laid before them, and while the kids were talking about the new addition to the collection of machines they had in the AV club, Steve leaned to his right a little bit. 

“How’s El?” He whispered. 

“Home,” Hopper grunted under his breath. “She was feeling a little… under the weather.” Hop looked at him. “I promised her we’d have eggos when I got home.”

He nodded, because that made sense. Steve didn’t blame her one bit. He knew she’d been trying to find the gate by herself, but even when El was under the lab’s supervision, _or captivity,_ she’d never been alone while using her powers. 

It scared her too much.

As the dinner continued on, he appreciated everyone’s comments directed toward him or their involving him in the conversation, but he still felt a little out of place. He would’ve felt more comfortable with Robin glued to his side, all snark and sarcasm. Hell, even Billy here next to him would’ve eased the tension in his shoulders. But, Steve knew they both had family obligations, and it wouldn’t have made much sense for either of them to show up because they didn’t really know Joyce or her family. 

It might’ve been a stretch for Steve himself to be here, because what connection did he have to this family?

They all ate and laughed and Dustin snorted chocolate milk powder out of his nose and they laughed some more. Although they were celebrating as a rag tag group of friends and acquaintances, it didn’t seem to matter. Some of them had already eaten with their blood relatives and _had to be full,_ but it just didn’t matter. Joyce’s own Miracle Whip Green Bean casserole concoction was a little runny and a little weird, and Steve grinned as he shoved it down his gullet.

He was grateful nobody asked about the thin cut that ran across the side of his face. Luckily, it was pretty much healed up, thanks to neosporin. It could pass as just a unassuming scrape. 

Towards the end of the meal, when everyone had stuffed their stomachs and spread out to lounge in the living room, Steve noticed Nancy remained alone at the table, looking down and small. 

He wasn’t going to say anything, Joyce had a hole-y and tattered loveseat calling his name, but he thought better of it. 

“Nancy, is everything alright?”

She looked up at him, and he realized she had unshed tears in her eyes. He flinched, taken aback, ready to question her, but she spoke first. 

“Barbara should be here, Steve. And she’s not, and-” her whispered voice cracked. “And we know what happened to her, and I can’t live with it anymore!” She shoved away from the table, chair screeching horribly on the linoleum flooring, and marched down the small hallway, halting the conversations in the living room. 

Steve just stood there. 

After a second, the voices around the corner behind him resumed and the laughter picked up again. 

He understood where she was coming from, _he did._

But he didn’t know what to do. His brain was telling him to go after her - he was once involved with her, and part of him still cared for her. His body, though, was telling him that loveseat sounded better by the minute. 

A sigh ripped through him, seemingly out of nowhere. 

Steve’s steps were cushioned by the shaggy green carpet that lined the hall. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will flew past him down the hallway and slammed the door shut to Will’s room, yelling something about D&D. He turned the corner to the second door on the right and found himself nearly transformed in time. 

Cameras adorned the small room, of all shapes and ages and sizes. A record player, nearly unfamiliar to Steve’s pristine player in his mansion’s parlor, sat worn to the frame and cracked on the small table. The full bed was neatly made to perfection and atop it sat Nancy’s small, sobbing frame. 

And just like that, all of his anger, his hurt just slipped out of him and was gone, almost like he never felt that way at all. 

It was now, with the recent events of Billy’s lips, that Steve felt - _he was beginning to feel okay._ He really didn’t know what being _okay_ felt like, but he figured in his chest, with the lightness of his heart, he was getting there. 

Because Nancy didn’t deserve his wrath. That was a shitty thing to do, to leave him like she did, all strung out and wrenched open. But now, looking at her weeping frame hunched over on the bed, he felt sorrow and compassion for her, not anger. 

“Nance,” he gently touched her shoulder, easing down next to her. “Have you ever considered… talking to someone? Confidentially?”

She sniffled, wiping her nose on her linty purple sweater, peering up at him through mascara-smeared eyelashes. “What?”

Steve felt hesitant to open up to her, because therapy was something he’d hid _his whole life, from everyone,_ but if there was ever a reason to spill his secret, now seemed to be as good a time as ever.

Before he could though, she steamrolled on, vicious and biting and out for blood.

“Why don’t you feel bad, Steve? What happened in your childhood that made you so emotionally fucked up?” Nancy hissed, trying to dig under his skin, get her salty tears in the open wounds on his heart.

But he couldn’t feel angry about her stinging outburst. It wouldn’t form in his chest, no familiar rise of heat in his torso, nothing.

Maybe this was what Ron was talking about, growing - healing.

“Ron, he, uh,” Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s my therapist. I’ve seen him since I was young, probably too young. He helped me give up drugs, ‘n talk about... stuff.”

“You had a therapist when we were dating?”

“Well, yeah.”

Nancy blanched, and her eyes almost fell out of her head. “I’m sorry Steve, I didn’t know-”

“No, it’s okay.” Every time he blinked, a chaotic, overwhelming grayness filled his vision. “I only go once a month now, and it’s not a big deal-”

“I didn’t know you were struggling, when we were dating. I could’ve helped you, I should’ve-” her voice broke, making way for more crying. She buried her face in her arms. 

This wasn’t the way he wanted this to go. 

But, Steve was determined. His peripheral vision spotted Jonathan in the doorway, and it must’ve been weird for him to see his girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend crying on his bed. He willed Jonathan not to come in, and he must have got the silent message, because he only lingered for a moment, then disappeared down the hallway. 

“Nancy,” he spoke softly, burying his hands between his knees, stuck between wanting to comfort a crying girl but not wanting to overstep. “You should talk to Ron about Barb. He can help you. I’m going again in 2 weeks, and I’ll schedule you in, he’d love to see you, I know it.”

She sniffled again, and the worst of her sobs seemed over. 

“I just - I miss her so much, ya know? She was my best friend, and I fucked up so bad, because she was trying to _help me,_ protect me, and I ignored her and now she’s dead. She’s dead Steve, and her parents are still looking for her. I don’t know what to do.”

He reached over and rubbed her back. Steve knew he was shit at comforting, but he was trying here, and hopefully that counted. 

After a moment, her sad noises were reduced to quiet hiccups and she tried to flatten her disordered hair with a moist palm. 

“You look great,” Steve complimented with a small smile. It was weird to genuinely compliment someone who he’d disliked just minutes ago - his skin felt stretched thin, across his bones and over the planes of his shoulders.

“I didn’t know your parents… _hit you_ until after we broke up,” She whispered, and he flinched at the word _hit._ “I’m sorry, Steve. I wish I would have known, I wish there was something I could have done.” The weight of the world that sat atop his shoulders slid to the ground and shattered like glass - a weight he didn’t know he held until it was gone. 

It was like a release. Like all the bad feelings he harbored in his heart for Nancy just gave out. 

“No, don’t.” He shrugged jerkily, because what was he supposed to say? It wouldn’t have mattered if she knew about his horrible parent-child relationship because there wasn’t one damn thing she could’ve done about it. 

He left her on the bed to gather herself, and made his way up the hall to the ratted loveseat. It was as comfy as he knew it would be, and he fell right into it, like a bug to a windshield. This was the first time he sat without the unknown weight of the disclosure between his and Nancy’s relationship crushing him. He felt like a parched man drinking water for the first time during a drought. 

Minutes later, Nancy trailed out of the bedroom, looking more like herself than a crying mess, and settled on the sofa next to Jonathan. Joyce was in the middle of a story about last year’s burnt turkey while Hopper guffawed about it wholeheartedly, and the soft timbres of the easy atmosphere eased him into a comfortable lull.

As Steve gazed around the small, semi-demolished home, watching as Nancy’s fingers laced with Jonathan’s, and how genuinely Joyce and Hopper interacted, and as he heard the excited voices travel from the boys down the hall, he didn’t see strangers, he saw a family - a miscellaneous sort of group - but a family nonetheless, and that was a gift better than any meal he could ever eat. 

xxx

_Saturday November 24, 1984_

Steve easily spotted Hopper’s towering presence in the crowd of his Saturday night game and knew it was time. 

After the game ended with a win, he grabbed his stuff and made it to the exit, jersey in one hand and dodging groups of congratulating peers with the other. 

To say he was nervous was an understatement. It seemed like this was too much responsibility for him to be assigned, especially because he was being thrown into all this demogorgon mess head first. 

The Sheriff was silent as he throttled the Bronco in the direction of his secluded forest cabin. 

“What do I need to do?”

“She’ll do most of it,” his voice was gruff, and although Hopper had been the one to ask him, Steve seemed to think this was hard for him, too. “You just need to make sure she doesn’t drown herself. The pool is big, ‘cuz she has to float completely.”

Steve wanted to puke, but he nodded along anyway. “You’ve seen her do this before? Desensitize herself?”

“Yeah.” 

The drive was quick, faster than he would’ve liked it to be. As they entered the dark cabin, he looked at the plastic blue, ankle-deep pool and taken a sharp breath. This was too real. _She was 13, for fucks sake, how was this going to work-_

“Don’t kill her,” Hopper threw a pointed finger in Steve’s direction and slammed the door behind him, no doubt going to work his shift. 

He shuddered, because _why was that even a possibility-_

The tv was flipped onto static and she sat cross-legged in the pool, and he took a seat on the wooden floor. The sky reflected blackness now, and every window was covered, but that didn’t hide the fact that the moon was out. The bouncing image of the black and white pixels from the tv dotted their prone bodies and flung itself across the small kitchen. 

Steve felt that feeling in his shaking hands, and shook them desperately to stave the sensation away. 

“It has to be silent,” she told him, and although she couldn’t see him behind her, he nodded anyway. 

Quickly, he learned he hated the goggles. He hated them with a passion, so much so that the second El wrapped them around her head, shivers went up and down his spine. They were crude things, something that you’d see in a horror movie. The duct tape slapped to the front of them hid her eyes. She slid down so her body was floating on the water line. The water tapped against the plastic lining quietly as she adjusted, and it seemed too peaceful a gesture. 

“Warmer,” she muttered. Steve gaped for a second, then realized what he was supposed to do and grabbed a discarded pitcher, filling it with lukewarm tap water. He dumped it in the pool, gently, because apparently the session had begun. 

He really didn’t know why he needed to be here for this, but Hopper had asked him to be here, and seeing how exhausted the man was, Steve wanted to do anything to help. He didn’t fully understand the situation, or the stakes at hand here, but if this town and the people in it were in danger, he was going to help in any way he could. 

Even if that meant holding a 13 year-old girl underwater. 

Eleven seemed to read his mind. “I don’t like to do it alone.” She mumbled, and that was all the incentive he needed to stay.

“It’s okay. I’m here. I promised you and Hop that I’d help, remember? I’m gonna be right here the whole time, and I’m not gonna let anything happen, okay?” 

After that, it was quiet. Eleven floated in the pool in their living room and Steve sat on the wood floor next to her head and tried not to stare. Every few minutes, she’d spastically jerk her arm or make small, whispering noises. Steve just glued his eyes to her bobbing head, making sure it remained above water. 

He liked helping, he really did, but the problem was he didn’t feel like he _was_ helping. It seemed like she was fighting battles and killing monsters behind her skull and he was just sitting here on his ass. 

After 3, 5, 7 minutes, right as he was about to pull his hair out of his head, her body flung out of the water. A horrible screech was coming from her throat, and Steve gasped as she scrambled onto his legs and up his torso. He panicked for a second, then when he realized she wasn’t trying to kill him, he stopped floundering and held still. 

He wanted to ask what she’d seen, to ask if she’d been able to locate the gate. But, now was definitely the wrong time.

He sat solid as El slumped on him, crying and mumbling the word “papa” over and over into his shoulder. She was sopping wet, and now Steve’s clothes were soaked, and there was water all over the fuckin’ floor, but he couldn’t give a shit, because _what had this girl seen in her mind that made her, powers and all, act like this?_

And Steve realized why Hopper wanted him to be here, finally, because as she sat huddled up next to him, getting his cotton sweatshirt all wet and shivering up a storm, she looked so small and… lonely, and Steve couldn’t imagine going through this alone.

Had she gone through it alone in that lab? With all those mindless pieces of shit hosing her down with a water blaster? The way she was cowering in on herself made Steve think they didn’t treat her right in Hawkins Laboratory. Hopper hadn’t said anything specific, but Steve had been clued in enough to know that that place was on some shady shit.

But then, she’d been a human lab rat. Of course they treated her like shit.

The thought alone made him wrap his arms around her, ignoring the water soaking through his sleeves. He didn’t know how he was going to comfort her, but he did know how to be a decent fucking human being, and that was enough.

xxx 

_Thursday December 6, 1984_

The lethargic drizzle of rain turned to sleet, which led to the season’s first snowfall. 

The fifth basketball game of the season came and went, and Steve felt better than he had in months. 

Maybe it was the exercise, maybe it was the way Billy’s hand would graze his back as they chased the ball down the court. Even in the middle of a game, with the stands full of popcorn-munching spectators, he’d still acknowledge Steve, letting him know that Billy knew he was there, on the same team, always in the back of his mind. 

It made his insides feel like gel, to think of himself always occupying part of Billy’s mind. 

He didn’t really know where they stood. Billy and him would press their thighs together as they ate lunch next to each other. Their usual nitpicking ensued, but there wasn’t any fire behind it anymore. To the outside eye, Steve thought, it looked normal and they portrayed friendly enemies - kinda friends, mostly out for each other's throats. 

But of course, the first second Billy even came into view, Robin knew. And she called Steve out.

“What happened between you two?”

Steve worked to not choke on his frozen burrito. “What do you mean?”

She eyeballed Billy’s back as he filled his lunch tray with food across the lunchroom. Her eyes darted back to him. “You guys have been… different. Something’s changed.”

Steve swallowed a gulp of chocolate milk in an attempt to act nonchalant. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Harrington, don’t lie to me. You guys have been sitting a little closer lately. What’s going on?”

So he told her. He told her all about how his parents came back and Billy found him, blocks away from his house, shoeless, disarrayed and numb, and bandaged up his face. He told Robin how they kissed, and about how Billy was going to put a crate below his bedroom window because he was worried Steve’s father would hurt him again.

As always, she was patient and sarcastically gentle.

“Damn. He hit you? Again?” 

“Yeah,” Steve craned his head closer so she could see his face, clocking Billy’s figure reaching the end of the lunch line. 

She hummed, quiet and deep. “Yeah, I can see where he sliced you.”

“Anyway, that’s what’s been up. And before you ask where Billy and I stand, don’t, because I have no idea.”

She grinned, teeth gleaming off the yellow ceiling panel lighting. 

When Billy tossed his tray on the table next to Steve, complaining about the lunch ladies’ horrible breath, their arms touched, from wrist to shoulder, and neither boy made any move to separate.

Robin eyed Steve, but he pretended to be too into his peas to notice.

“Hey, where’d you go after the game on Saturday?” Billy talked right through a mouthful of nuked frozen food, and Steve’s eyelids felt heavy against the warmth of Billy’s arm pressed against his. 

He could either lie, or he could be honest. He wasn’t about to tell Billy and Robin, who was now looking at him with piqued curiosity also, like she wanted to know too, that he spent his free time helping an ex-lab rat with superpowers nearly drown herself. No way. 

“I, uh, had a bloody nose. Had to get out of there.”

Billy looked at him oddly, earring dangling through the curls. He definitely didn’t believe Steve’s fib.

“Uhh, fuck me over,” Tommy plopped down on the other side of Steve, jolting him out of the moment. There was a black lining in the creases of his teeth from a recent tobacco gumming session, and his breath was rancid as he grinned in Steve’s face. “Hey Harrington, what up?”

“Tommy,” he grumbled, shoulders going up in defense as Tommy gripped the back of his neck, then squeezed his jaw. 

“Yer lookin’ good as ever, Stevie.”

Steve shook him off, turning red from anger under the death glare Billy was shooting Tommy. He remembered the last time the three boys had had a run-in, and Billy’d threatened to tear Hagan’s head off.

Robin looked at them awkwardly. It was obvious that Tommy wasn’t welcome here.

“Hagan,” Billy said around Steve, craning his neck to see. “Are you fucking _drunk?”_

“Yesh.”

“Inebriation doesn’t look good on anyone, Tommy-boy, especially you.” Robin voiced.

“You guys are just a bunch of jackasses.” He mumbled, then spotted Carol across the lunchroom. “Baby!” And he stumbled off.  
  
  


“He’s the jackass,” Billy grumbled under his breath, shoving a spoonful of peas in.

Robin and Steve looked at each other, then snickered. Billy kicked him under the table, but then rested his ankle against Steve’s, and his heart jumped.

The lunch bell rang, and they began packing up their stuff. 

“I’m ready to be outta this jail,” Robin told him as they walked.

They had a week and a half until winter break, and Steve was ready for it. Mr. Polanski was working Robin and him to death with homework, and Mrs. Rutherford decided to have one more test before the break instead of the standard 4 like everyone else in the school. 

“I’m ready to be done with college applications,” he countered. “I don’t even know if I want to go to college anymore, I feel like I’m wasting my time.”

They parted ways at the door of Steve’s math class. He watched Robin walk down the hallway out of sight and sighed.

He hated math.

xxx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are my own! Let me know what you guys think! :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But Billy didn’t respond, didn’t even move, just looked at him. Despite every cell in Steve’s body telling him to, he didn’t move either, couldn’t, like something heavy was anchoring him in that spot, just feet away from the man that’d wrenched him open emotionally, Steve realized, months ago."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per the usual, all mistakes are my own :)
> 
> Happy reading, friends! <3

When Steve wasn’t doing homework or sitting in class or throwing a basketball around, he was crouched down on Sheriff Hopper’s living room floor, cradling El’s head to his chest as she tried not to hyperventilate. 

After a whirlwind of a week, he was let out of school for Christmas break.

He was excited to be done for a few weeks, but his excitement faltered when he realized it was going to be a long break if he didn’t make some plans. He called up Robin and she agreed to meet him at Bronco’s for a chili cheese dog, but only if he was paying.

Mrs. Henderson phoned his home and asked if he could tote Dustin around on the 20th while she traveled to Pocatello to visit her sister, to which he agreed. He acted like it was a big deal, but in reality, he was looking forward to seeing Dustin again. It’d been a couple of weeks.

And, once a month, he met with Ron, of course. 

This month, they met on the 17th of December. Ron’s eyes were polite as usual, but a little more so this time, probably in lieu of the holiday season. He didn’t grill Steve about his feelings or anything else, and when Steve mentioned he had a friend who could use some help, Ron was more than happy to arrange an appointment for Nancy. 

And when he left, Steve felt happy, a wild grin plastered across his face. It was a nice change from the grim despair he usually felt walking out of the therapist’s office. 

xxx

_Wednesday December 19, 1984_

It was snowing outside, of course, and a dark and heavy storm had settled into the valley that Hawkins resided in. Although it was only 5 o’clock in the evening, the sky reflected nothing but blackness. Steve had to steel his knees and curl his toes to avoid slipping all over the snowy sidewalk in his court shoes. They worked great on the gym floor, but snow was definitely a different story.

Today was the last practice until early January, when school started back up, and Steve was a little bit disappointed. Basketball kept him distracted and busy - and he got to see Billy’s rippling frame make 3-pointers and left-handed layups. That was definitely a plus.

“Steve!” He heard a call behind him. He turned to look, but before he could even register anything, Hargrove’s blurred figure was plowing into his shoulder and accidentally ramming the basketball he was holding into Steve’s spine.

“Oof-” Steve grunted as they collided. His hands shot out, gripping Billy’s forearms as they both slid around on the snowy ground to stay upright. Steve’s leg tangled with Billy’s as a strand of his sweaty mop poked Billy’s eye. After a second of sightlessly slipping around, the entangled bodies skidded to a stop.

Still on his feet, Steve huffed, mentally assessing for any injuries. They were both breathing hard, and the icy temperatures reflected their mingling breath in white puffs of moisture. He became acutely aware of Billy’s warm hand on his hip, firm and warm and sending sparks through his thin tee. Their contact was sudden and unexpected and his mind was still playing catch up.

He didn’t ever want to _not feel_ Billy’s hand on his hip, if he was honest. 

Through the blood rushing through his ears, he heard the blonde man chuckle. “We almost just fucking died, Harrington.”

Steve grimaced, pulling his foot back from where it was trapped between Billy’s. “My death isn’t going to be in this white shit, that’s for sure.”

“You’re not a snow fan?”

He scowled. “Hell to the fucking no.”

The boys separated, but Billy’s hand remained on Steve’s hip, making his heart do flips. “Surprisingly, I am. Never’d really seen it before we moved out here to podunk nowhere, but I kinda like it.”

They were close, suspiciously close for two boys in a school parking lot in the middle of a snow flurry. After a second of silence, just kinda _looking at each other,_ Steve bent down and grabbed the blonde man’s sports duffel off the ground.

“Here,” he said, holding it out. Hargrove looked at him for another beat, then removed his hand off Steve’s hip, much to Steve’s dismay, and took the bag.

Billy’s eyes were still icy blue, and Steve thought that was more than appropriate for the temperatures outside. 

“Thanks.”

Another pause. There was snow gathering on the top of his head, making a home in his hair, and small flakes were sticking to Billy’s long eyelashes.

“I guess this is goodbye, for a while.”

Steve’s head jerked up. “What?”

“We gotta hitch it to California for Christmas. My old man’s sister lives there, and when we left, she was all up in arms about it.” He shrugged. “After three weeks of hearing her bitchin’ about it on the phone, I guess Neil finally gave in.” But then Billy’s cocky, side smirk fell, and his shoe scuffled the ground through the snow. “I’m sorry you have to be alone for Christmas, Steve.”

His heart felt dislodged, and the thought of being alone made him want to puke, but he’d been alone for more important things before. 

“I’ll be alright.” He tried to lighten the mood. “Maybe my parents _will_ come home for Christmas this year.”

Billy grimaced. “I hope not. Those fuckers can rot in hell.”

A laugh erupted from Steve’s mouth, unexpected and loud, like a huge breath of air escaping. Billy chuckled along as Steve gripped his ribs to quell the ache that’d settled there, feeling like his head was full of helium. Snow landed on his tongue as his head was thrown back.

Billy was on his side. Billy cared.

Embarrassingly, it hit Steve like a freight train.

Nobody ever really cared for Steve, but Billy did, by hoping that Steve didn’t have to see his parents for Christmas, because Billy knew that when Steve’s parents came home, blood ensued, and _Billy didn’t want that for Steve._

Because he cared.

He stopped laughing, letting his cackles fade out softly. Billy was looking at him with an odd look in his eyes. Steve felt like he was in a tornado, with the world whipping around him, trying to swallow him up. It was a strange feeling to feel, as peaceful as the snow was falling.

_When had Billy begun to care for him? How early on?_

Sure, they’d kissed, but he thought Billy didn’t think anything of it, so he didn’t either.

Steve was a fucking idiot. 

Weeks ago, Billy patched up his face in the Camaro. Months before that, on the shitty carpet of the arcade, Billy was there for him as he tried to breathe again after getting elbowed in his broken rib.

They just looked at each other.

“Have a good break, Billy.” His voice was hoarse, betraying him by portraying everything he was feeling through his words.

But Billy didn’t respond, didn’t even move, just looked at him. Despite every cell in Steve’s body telling him to, he didn’t move either, couldn’t, like something heavy was anchoring him in that spot, just feet away from the man that’d wrenched him open emotionally, Steve realized, _months ago._

“Can I kiss you?”

Not even a breath left his body. 

“Yes,” Steve whispered.

Billy closed the gap, not paying any mind to the potentially fatal slippery ground. The duffel he had been holding was carelessly tossed aside. Against the winter chill, the blonde man’s fingers were warm against Steve’s chilled cheeks. Their lips collided, chasing away the rest of the cold on Steve’s face. Billy’s hand found Steve’s hip again, and a sigh left his mouth at the contact as they kissed. Billy chuckled, leaving a small nip on Steve’s bottom lip.

Steve hoped no one was out here watching them.

They separated, and Billy bent to pick up his things again. He took a few steps back, still looking at Steve, and said, “you too, pretty boy.”

When Steve got home, his feet were soaked to the bone.

xxx

_Thursday December 20, 1984_

“It’s so rad that we’re out of school until January!”

There was, arguably, no one more excited for the break than Dustin.

“What are you gonna do, Steve?”

“I’m doin’ it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to spend like, 3600 hours on my Atari with Lucas-”

“That’s a big number, Henderson.”

“-and I’m going to find my old spirograph and read my Beano comics, hopefully I’m getting some new ones for Christmas because the old editions are shit, and Mike said we could play with his Big Trak.”

“Wow,” Steve said. “Did you even take a breath?”

“There’s no time to breathe, because we’re here!”

Steve pulled his Bimmer into the closest parking stall. The arcade looked especially busy today, children and angsty teens alike lingered in the doorway and sat against the brick, all marshmallow coats and earmuffs. 

“Henderson, this looks like a special place in hell, the one where innocent cool guys like me get sent for doing too much public service.”  
  


“Driving me around isn’t public service, Steve.”

They went inside and Dustin immediately disappeared, no doubt in search of his friends. Steve wandered around, wincing as brace-face and acne-face cussed at a game of Zaxxon. 

As he turned a corner, he saw Sally Mae and her posse from school. She was a junior on the cheerleading team with a big brain and even bigger ass, but the kind of ass that would make any typical, horny senior male swoon.

Steve wasn’t, though.

He tried to walk right past their group, praying that they wouldn’t see him over their strawberry shakes, but luck really hadn’t been on his side lately. Not even the sea of prepubescent primary schoolers could stop the interaction Steve could see going terribly, _terribly wrong._

“Hi Steve,” she purred. Her friends giggled.

“Sally,” he said cordially, mentally cursing as his escape route was blocked by giddy six year olds. 

“The girls and I are headed to the quarry tonight. The snow’s not gonna be bad, so we’re gonna have a bonfire and… find some drinks.” She got closer and whispered. “You should come.” Steve felt her hand graze his abs through his shirt, then slide lower, and lower, _and-_

“Hey, that’s okay,” he laughed, easing backwards. One of Sally’s friends ran her nails across his shoulder, down his arm, and he felt another hand in his hair. “I have plans anyway.” He turned and slipped through a couple kissing. Their protests almost drowned out the giggles from the girls. 

“Next time then!” Sally called behind him. He turned to look, and the girls were waving their fingers and blowing kisses at him. He faltered in his steps, but then picked up his gait and shoved the glass door open, sneering at the stupid bell that jingled above as he went.

Steve remembered a phrase from the junior high bible study class his parents had forced him into. It echoed in his brain and bounced around on the inside of his skull, thundering and intrusive. He slammed his eyes shut, trying to force the words out of his mind, hands clutching at his temples. It was on a loop in his mind, like the phrase was tattooed permanently on the back of his eyelids, and whenever he blinked, the sentence was glowing like a neon sign.

_‘Ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous King’._

After all he did to downplay his popularity, to attempt to minimize his high status, one thing was for sure - he couldn’t avoid it. Couldn’t run from it. He could pretend he was just a normal high school kid, without the ‘King’ title or the admirers. But, it always came back, in the form of needy girls or praises in the hallway or random people vying for his attention or free burgers at Bronco’s or any-fucking-thing else.

After years of the bible class, that damning sentence may have been the only thing he remembered. Pastor Robbins would be disappointed.

xxx

_Sunday December 23, 1984_

Today’s session had been particularly rough.

For some reason, Eleven was very hesitant to get in the pool today. She nervously rang her hands together the second he arrived at the cabin. After some gentle coaxing from Steve, she was floating for all of 2 minutes before a blood-curdling scream left her body and began thrashing around. He had to grab her wrists so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

Her sobs drowned out his soft words of encouragement, but he still held her to his chest. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay, El. We’ll try again next week.”

Steve wrapped his arms around her, cradling her head in an awkward way, _because he wasn’t good at this,_ but when her arms clung to his back, it seemed like she was trying to comfort _him._

“Jim feels bad for you,” she mumbled, pulling back to timidly look him in the eyes, short hair hiding most of her face. “That’s why he asked you to do this.”

Immediately, Steve’s brain piqued. She sounded aged way beyond her years, and his heart went out to her. 

“What about the people already involved? He didn’t want to protect them? Because-”

“No.” El said firmly. “He knows about your parents.”

Steve’s stomach sunk. Hopper must've known about how they treated him. 

“He doesn’t know what to do. No proof. And they aren’t here.” She continued.

Here. In town. Because they basically lived in The Hamptons now, so Hopper couldn’t nail ‘em.

The room was silent except for the quiet sounds of water hitting the side of the plastic kiddie pool. 

“He talks in his sleep,” she mumbled again, as if she needed to explain herself, messing with the hem on her drenched, oversized shirt. 

“Why are you telling me this?” He asked softly. He knew El could hear the pain reverberating around in his voice box, not accusatory but defeated. She looked down again.

“Sometimes, I see you - in my mind.” She looked at his eyes, the brown pools overwhelming him. “You have been through a lot of pain.”

Steve bit his tongue, hard, because the open wounds on his soul had just begun to heal, and she was someone who understood him, deeper than face-level impressions and shallow judgements, someone who had never met King Steve, who knew him as Steve, broken and heart-heavy Steve. 

She saw into his soul, and she held no judgement against him for how tattered and bruised it looked. 

After that, the atmosphere had changed. She told him it was getting harder to locate the gate, probably because she was getting close. He told her that basketball season was almost over and that him and Billy were becoming better friends. 

At the mention of Billy, her nose scrunched.

“What?”

“Max,” she grumbled.

“You don’t like her?”

El glared at the ground, wet hair flopping into her eyes. 

Steve knew Max was harmless. After he drove her home, in that rainstorm months ago, his like for her grew. She was smart, and cunning and kind of quiet, but her head was on straight. He wished his biggest problems consisted of middle school drama.

“Come on, let’s find some dry clothes.” His knees creaked as he stood, blood rushing back into his veins in his legs from an hour of disuse. He bumped into the small, linoleum kitchen table, knocking a Christmas-themed advent calendar full of chocolates onto the ground. 

“Hey, I love these things! I used to do these every Christmas!” He exclaimed, popping open the 23 tap and opening his mouth. El swiped it out of his hands with her mind, easing the calendar into her own and inserting the chocolate back into the plastic casing. 

“Get your own chocolate,” she growled.

“Come on, El,” he groaned. “Where’s your Christmas spirit?! Look at my stomach,” he grasped his torso with outspread hands, putting on his best pout. “I’m all skin n’ bones, I need it.”

“I’ve never had a Christmas,” she said. “Mike had to explain to me what it was.”

“I’m sorry,” he was at a loss for words. But, in an attempt to lighten the mood, he said, “chin up, kiddo. Maybe Hopper will get you some eggos!”

She smiled, a rare sight for her, then went into her room to find something dry to wear. 

Standing in the living room, Steve smiled. When Hop first asked him to do this, to help her, he _just knew_ he was the last person on this earth that was qualified for this. She was a 13-year old brainwashed lab rat and he was a pompous jock with too much hair gel. 

But now, not for the first time in his life, he was beginning to understand. The similarities between their childhoods were beginning to show. A little detached, grew up a little neglected, didn’t know how to cope with feelings and feeling things.

Maybe, the reason she understood him so much, deeper than face value, was because she was just as cracked and superglued together as he was.

“Don’t touch my chocolate calendar!” She threatened him through her bedroom door.

xxx

_Tuesday December 25, 1984_

Robin stopped by on Christmas afternoon to give him a steel-colored windbreaker and a pack of cigarettes.

He didn’t have to heart to tell her he’d been trying to quit.

She came in and drank some of Steve’s maid Ruby’s homemade eggnog as Steve gave her a new pair of red converses. She laced them up a way Steve had never seen, in a way that was _Robin’s way,_ going under and over and around and through, and they talked about classes and the new semester and anything else.

He asked her if she’d thought to give Heather a gift for Christmas, and her cheeks went as bright red as her new sneakers, mumbling something about dropping it on her doorstep and running to hide behind the bushes.

“Robin, you coward,” Steve laughed goodnaturedly. When she threatened to take back his cigarettes, he chimed down.

Then, when she’d left, the sun had set, along with every mousy hope he’d held that his parents would come home, at least for the holiday. 

Alone in the quiet of his mind and the quiet of his house, he shook through the evening and into the night. 

xxx

_Thursday January 10, 1985_

Steve didn’t know what they were. 

As he sat at the lunch table on a snowy afternoon, trying to explain it all to Robin, he realized he couldn’t explain it because he himself didn’t know. 

“So, you’re telling me that your bodies got tangled up in the middle of a winter wonderland-”

“School parking lot,” he corrected.

“-and you kissed _again,_ and you’re, what… _just friends?"_

They were probably more than friends, now.

_Right?_

“Robinnnn,” he moaned. “This is why I waited to tell you. You’d try to dissect it, and label it and shit,” he grumbled.

“For fucks sake, Steve. How did Nancy put up with you?” Robin threw her ketchup packet at him from across the table. “Were you two even _official?"_

“Well, yeah.” He took a bite of the canned peaches on his tray. “But, it wasn’t ever, like, a question. We just - _were._ And,” he stopped and lowered his voice. A group of freshmen girls were waving at him from across the lunchroom, and he awkwardly waved back. They blushed red in the face and giggled. “-I’ve never dated another boy, Robin. I don’t know how it works!”

“It’s no different than dating a girl.” Robin’s nose scrunched at him. “You’re overthinking it, peabrain!”

Steve watched Billy walk over to them at their usual spot, and while people ogled at him as his presence carried like a moving mountain, Billy only had eyes for Steve. He waggled his eyebrows as his boots clunked along the tile, and now Steve was the one that was blushing.

Robin was right, he realized. As long as he was happy, and as long as Billy was happy being with him, they’d be just fine. 

“Hey, you’re wearing the jacket I gave you!” She exclaimed, excited.

His Christmas break came and went. Steve didn’t see his parents, didn’t even hear from them except the Christmas-themed postcard that showed up on the 27th. He looked at it for a second, then tossed it in the bin, right next to four half-smoked cigarette butts. 

_‘Cordially yours, Mr. and Mrs. Harrington.’_

Couldn’t even use their first names. They were his _parents_ for fucks sake. Assholes. 

“I love it,” he said, a smile accompanying his genuine reaction. “Steel gray really is my color.” He drawled, dramatically running a hand through his hair and puffing out his chest.

“Okay,” she laughed, swatting him. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Billy sat down next to them, smelling like hairspray and cigarette smoke. The smell was reassuring to Steve, like a drug for his brain. 

Maybe it was the weirdly good mood he was in, or maybe it was the intoxicating aroma Billy carried, but Steve was glad to see him.

“Hi Billy,” he said, kind of timidly.

“Hi Stevie,” Billy matched his shy tone and quiet volume, eyes alight. 

“How was California?”

“It was good to me. I got a tan on my ass,” he winked, and Steve’s heart burst. “Wanna see?”

Steve, with a shit-eating grin on his red face, buried his face in his peaches while Robin cackled comically next to him.

xxx


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Steve looked at the ground, not because of the dig, but because it hit him, like a freight train at full speed. The reality was they both had shit for parents and at what point in their lives would it get better?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Guess what?! After this chapter, there’s one more and an epilogue and then the story is over! 
> 
> Honestly, I’m so tired so I’m just going to proofread this tomorrow! If you’re reading this before that happens, just disregard any mistakes :)

_Friday February 8, 1985_

1:29 A.M. For fucks sake.

“What the hell,” Steve muttered, feet pattering across the foyer tile as he made his way to the front door. The dull streetlamp shone through the bay windows in his sitting room, casting yellow patterns across the area, almost like a painting. 

He scrubbed a hand through his unruly bedhair, eyes half-closed as he unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. 

Billy Hargrove stood on his mother’s faux fur welcome mat, smoking a cigarette and smirking.

“Hiya, Steve.”

Steve squinted. “Billy?”

“You look _rough,”_ the blonde said, puffing smoke out of the side of his mouth. But then Billy’s eyes traveled down, raking over his bare chest and low-slung basketball shorts, orbs of frozen ice nothing but _hungry._

Steve, all of a sudden self-conscious, felt like maybe he should have put more on. His nipples were morphing into pebbles from the frozen winter night air, and goosebumps skittered across the expanse of his back. It wasn’t anything Billy hadn’t seen before, of course - in fact, he’d most definitely seen _more_ of Steve in the showers after practice. 

But now, under the pitiful glow of a porch light above them, Steve caught sight of a predatory gleam in Billy’s eyes from the light and felt _exposed._

“I just got out of bed because it’s the middle of the night, asshole, it’s freezing out here, what the fuck are you _doing?”_

The lingering nicotine coming from Billy’s cigarette mixed with their breathing, white puffs of condensation, and Steve was having a hard time differentiating the two through his squinting irises. The other man cleared his throat and scuffed at the ground, Adam’s apple bobbing in the column of his neck. 

Steve’s gaze fell beyond Billy’s frame to the Camaro that was haphazardly parked with a front tire on the sidewalk. He then looked down the street at Mrs. Wilson’s smashed mailbox. She’d be pissed. 

Needless to say, he didn’t buy it for one second.

But, just as he felt the bitter beginnings of an argument rise in his throat, his gaze landed on blood dripping from the fingers poking out of Billy’s jean jacket.

_Plink, plink, plink-_

Steve’s eyes shot up to Billy’s, searching for some explanation in the now-sullen lines in his face. 

Just like that, his wolffish, cocky attitude was gone. 

“I didn’t know where else to go,” he mumbled. And now, it was clear to Steve. The too-tousled hair, the small smear of blood across an eyebrow, the new and blooming bruise on his cheek. “It’s too cold to sleep in my car.”

Steve was at a loss for words. He felt concern and worry cement itself in his eyebrows, and his heart clenched at the sight of Billy’s spilt blood. He felt his head nod, and his feet moved backwards on their own accord, making way for him to come inside.

His boots were loud on the cold floor and he followed Steve to the kitchen.

“Sit down, right there, take this,” Steve commanded, swiping one of his mother’s white kitchen hand towels off the oven handle and tossing it at the bleeding boy. Billy sat at the counter, and Steve felt eyes searing holes into his back as he rummaged around under the sink for the first-aid kit.

He set the kit on the counter as Billy worked on removing his jacket, but had to stop every few seconds with gritted teeth and clenched eyes. 

“Here, let me help,” he grabbed the sleeve and gently tugged as Billy was able to work his arm out, then eased out of the denim. The white cut-off he was wearing was more red than white, and Steve had to consciously keep the worry from his brows as he gently peeled that off of him too. Although he already had a hunch, he asked anyway.

“Fuck, Billy, what happened to you?” But as Steve’s eyes ran up to Billy’s, his suspicions were confirmed. He saw the hot streak of red fear in Billy’s electric blue irises, familiar to him more than it should have been.

It was the good ol’ daddy issues. His heart burned.

Billy didn’t respond, and Steve didn’t ask again. He used alcohol from his father’s hutch to clean the slice across a pec and disinfected the bruises on a bicep and did a quick swipe over the minor nicks to his eyebrow. 

And then, maybe because he was delusional with exhaustion or something else, he kissed the blossoming bruise on the side of Billy’s face, tenderly, hoping his chapped lips didn’t cause more harm to him.

Billy’s head turned, their lips meeting. 

“You can stay, if you want to.” He mumbled against the other man’s lips.

He felt Billy smile, then grip his hips as he pulled Steve closer. They kissed, passionately and warmly.

It was as if Steve’s head was floating, up in the clouds where only angels were. 

But, he was brought back to earth with the thought of Billy’s wounds.

They separated, eyes closed and foreheads together for a brief moment, then Steve found the butterfly band aids and neosporin to patch him up. For the most part, they were silent, save for Billy’s hissing at the sting, air dragged sharply through clenched teeth.

Where Steve had lean muscle and toned limbs, Billy was all brute muscle and broad shouldered, which made the shirt he lent him a little snug. Steve led him into his own bathroom, thankful for the years of cleanliness instilled in him by his father via force. 

Also, thankful for his maid when he forgot.

Billy wiped the majority of the sweat and grime out of his hair using the sink. He swiped Steve’s toothbrush off the counter to clean the blood out of his teeth, grinning at him like a madman as he did so, a knowing gleam in his eye at his rebellion.

Steve made a mental note to go buy another one.

He wiped the blood off his earring with a tissue and tossed it towards the waste bin, but missed entirely. Steve snickered, leaning up against the wall as he watched.

“And you call yourself a layup prodigy.”

Billy, with a ferocious bite in his voice and a feral smile, bit back, “you’re not much better, sticky fingers.”

Steve looked at the ground, not because of the dig, but because _it hit him,_ like a freight train at full speed. The reality was they both had shit for parents and at what point in their lives would it _get better?_

Billy, who seemed to see right through him, had _always_ seen right through him, from the very beginning at that stupid quarry, gripped his hand in understanding, the rare form of softness reserved only for Steve glinting in his eyes.

“How fucked up are we,” a statement through a cracked voice. “I mean, my dad hits me, your dad beats the shit outta you,” Steve shoved a hand through his hair, harsh and panicky, back hitting the wall in defeat, knees giving out as he slid to the ground. 

Billy sat next to him, in a sort of consoling manner that he had never seen from the boy. He didn’t say anything, just sat next to Steve on his bathroom floor tile against the wall and breathed. Their knees rested against each other, Billy’s stained, holey jean against his bare one.

Finally, a sentence escaped Steve’s mouth. “I think I’ll be dead before I can get away from them - _really_ get away.”

Billy’s legs flexed next to him, a quiet, reverent tone in his voice. “My dad will follow me anywhere to give me shit, probably even to the grave.”

They sat and listened to the drip of a leaky faucet and marinated in the sullen atmosphere. And then Steve led him to one of the extra bedrooms, with a plush comforter and silk sheets, but ultimately, they fell asleep together in Steve’s bed, legs entangled, breaths mingling, sheer exhaustion taking over far too soon.

And in the morning, when Steve blearily looked around the room, Billy’d already gone.

xxx

_Tuesday February 12, 1985_

It was quiet - so quiet that Steve could’ve heard a pin drop.

Light glimmered throughout the water her body was floating in, the shine of moonlight trailing in a window, skimming past a skiwampus cloth that was supposed to fashion as a drape. He was entranced at the sight - the soft, yellow glow shot right to his brain, like melatonin. His eyes skittered to her head every couple of seconds, making sure she was still breathing and afloat, then became glossy again as he zoned out.

_Shit, what time was it?_

It seemed like something was supposed to be _happening -_ it was like time was in suspense, just dangling right over a cliff. Steve felt like he should be doing something, saving someone, being proactive. But here he was, sitting on his ass while gnawing on already-chewed nails and staring off into space. 

“I found it!” She heaved, water flowing off her body as she shot out of the pool. Her breathing was erratic, hands gripping the side of the pool. The moonlight shone through the strands of her sopping hair as she came out of the water, almost as if she was in slow-motion. 

Steve jumped as her outburst disturbed the stillness of the room.

She gasped for breath, shoulders shaking. “I found it. I know where the gate is.”

xxx

“So what does this mean? Where are you _going?”_

“To tell Joyce.”

“Okay,” Steve breathed, insistently following the Sheriff to the driver’s side door. “I’m coming then.” The Bronco creaked in protest as the older man slid in, jamming the keys in the ignition. 

“No.”

“Hop,” he whined. “I’m part of this too, now.”

“Steve, you’re a kid, and I can’t be responsible for you. El and I are grateful for everything you’ve done,” he paused, throwing his head back in a nod to Eleven’s quiet, composed stature in the backseat. “But you're done here.”

She’d been quiet - in a sort of thinking manner - ever since Steve had frantically called Jim home from his shift. He had flown into the drive, skidding gravel everywhere, demanding answers. Because Steve hadn’t felt comfortable giving any _top secret_ information over the phone, Hopper was extremely lost until he laid it all out for him. 

“Where was that mindset when you recruited me to make sure she didn’t drown in that pool, huh?”

Hopper sighed. “Go home, Steve.”

“You know that lab is crawling with demodogs. You’ll need an extra set of hands, Hopper.”

It was silent for a beat, then, “get in, for fucks sake.”

But instead, Steve grinned and made a mad dash to the front porch, where his precious studded bat sat. 

“Don’t bring that,” Hopper groaned from the vehicle, but Steve was already swinging it around and climbing into the passenger seat, ready to go. He felt apprehension and fear as much as excitement, but his limbs, his muscles, were jumpy with anticipation. 

He was an adrenaline junkie, no doubt about it, with no sense of self-preservation. Not a good combination. 

The ride to Joyce’s was short as Hopper drummed his thumbs against the wheel, nervously ping-ponging his eyes to the rearview mirror. To El’s credit, she didn’t look nervous, but with her past, Steve doubted she even knew what anxiety was, let alone felt like. 

Joyce, in all her parental wisdom, seemed to sense they were coming, because as soon as the Bronco lurched got a stop in front of the small, shambled house, she came running out, slippers and all. 

Hopper only had to say two words to get her to fully understand, because she promised to keep Will in the house. 

_“It’s time.”_

She looked a little green in the face, like the whole weight of the world rested on her shoulders, which Steve thought was ironic, because while it didn’t rest on _her_ shoulders, the world was still at stake here. Nonetheless, she understood with haughty disdain and took a few hesitant steps backward, then walked up the walkway and into the house. Hopper and El followed her, Steve trailing on their heels.

The kitchen light fixture was faint, with most of the light in the room trailing in from the yellowed window. Joyce sat at the small table, smoking a cigarette with folded arms and grumbling to herself.

“No.”

Hopper grimaced. “Joyce, this isn't an illness that’ll just go away on its own-”

“Hop, we just need time-”

“It’s caused by the mindflayer-”

“Hopper, _no-“_

“We need to act now! Because-”

“Jim!” Her voice was firm and loud as she stood up, crunching the bud of the cigarette in the ashbowl. “He is _my son_ and he’s sick! And I-I-I don’t _care_ if this is mindflayer related or not, he’s fevering and delusional and we need to wait!”

Hopper grabbed her flailing forearms gently, shushing her. “Joyce, he’s not going to get better until this is done.”

“He’s not strong enough to fight this right now!” She sniffled. “Friday. Friday night.” At Hopper’s exasperated protests, she insisted. “Hop!”

He stared for a second, and Steve could see the hypothetical wheels turn in his head. Hopper looked at Eleven, who wasn’t listening at all, but standing over Will’s sweaty, twitching body lying prone on the couch. Hopper followed Steve’s gaze to the ill boy, assessing Joyce’s claims. 

And she was definitely right. His skin was white as a sheet and his hair ran in strings across his forehead. His hands shook on his chest as he mumbled to himself, legs twitching and knobby knees bumping together. Joyce sat on the edge of the couch, shushing and petting his head. There were tears in her eyes.

“Okay,” Hopper reluctantly gave in. “Friday.”

xxx

_Thursday February 14, 1985_

Seeing Ruby, Steve decided, was always the best part of his Thursdays. 

“Mr. Harrington, welcome home!”

“Thanks Ruby,” he smiled, wiping his hand over his sweaty fringe. “It’s good to see you.”

“Ah, you too,” her bubbly personality was always infectious, and he immediately felt looser. “I’ve left meals in the fridge, and wiped down your countertops.”

“Ruby, you’re _too_ good to me.” He playfully dramatized. 

“You’ve left toothpaste in your sink again, Steven, so I’ve taken care of that too.” She gently swiped her rag across the back of his head, chiding him.

“Whoops,” he said lightly, not feeling remorseful in the least. “I just get in such a rush in the mornings, you know.”

“Just because you’re worshipped by your peers doesn’t mean you’re above washing down the suds.” She playfully swatched his shoulder, admonishing, and with her tote full of cleaning supplies in one hand, she exited through the front door, calling behind her, “I’ll see you next Thursday!”

Steve sighed, leaving his sweaty jersey and bag in a heap by the door and bee lining for the prepped meals she’d left him. 

Ruby was a pudgy, 4’11 blonde woman with too much sass in her little body for Steve. His parents had hired her after the party he’d thrown, and she made sure his fridge was stocked and the house was spotless. 

She was a damn good cook too, and he had to work extra hard at practice to keep himself slim. 

And, if he was completely honest, _which was rare,_ he liked the knowledge of someone else being in his house - someone that he trusted. It made it not feel so eerie and lonely. 

He nuked the chicken in the microwave and sat down at the expansive granite countertop to scarf his dinner. 

But, only two bites in, Steve heard his front door crash open and heavy footsteps coming around the corner.

“Damn, Harrington. It smells fucking delicious in here.” Billy’s ass slid easily onto the counter as his thighs collided with Steve’s arms, almost knocking his meal right onto the floor and sending his utensil clattering. “You’re a good ball player, but you cook too? Is there anything you can’t do, pretty boy?”

Steve scoffed, standing up to grab another fork. 

“Knock much, Hargrove?”

“Not when I know what’s inside is so mouthwatering.” Suddenly, Billy was behind Steve, spinning him around and pinning him to the countertop. Billy’s lips were warm and alive as they pressed to his. Steve’s fingers ran through the slightly taller man’s golden locks, finding home at the roots. Billy bit inside his mouth and their tongues mingled until they were out of breath and red in the face. 

“And I’m not talking about the food.” Billy mumbled against him. 

Steve tried to control his breathing after that kiss. “You don’t have to be home?”

Billy faked an appalled look. “You think I’m just using you as a _safe haven?_ On _Valentine's Day?”_

And Steve definitely did not _yelp_ as the blonde man stuck his nose into his neck. 

Billy went to the fridge to grab some water bottles as Steve found two more forks. 

“Hey! What’d you do to my shelf?!” Billy’s outburst startled him, and the forks almost went flying. “It’s _filled_ with, with… other things!” He huffed and whirled around, bouncy curls flying. “Steve! What’s the point of having my own shelf in your fridge if you put other shit on there!”

It was almost comical, and Steve erupted in laughter at the sight of the tall, blonde man freaking out about a shelf in the icebox. 

They made themselves comfortable on the living room sofa, legs woven together on the ottoman. They both ate out of the same container, and if Steve’s mother knew he was eating lemon chicken on her sofa, she’d skin him alive.

“Hey, where were you at practice on Tuesday? Coach was fuckin’ pissed. And you missed Davis’ disgusting ass snot rocket.”

Steve’s stomach dropped, because he knew exactly where he was, but Billy couldn’t know. He didn’t want to lie, though. The blonde man sitting in front of him, with their legs curled together, meant too much to Steve to just lie to him. 

“I was at Hopper’s cabin. He needed help with some things and I went over.” He shrugged, trying to act nonchalant while anxiety rose in him. “Besides, basketball is almost over.” 

“We still have, like, 2 weeks of basketball left, Steve.”

“Yeah, and I’ll be there for the rest of it, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

After a pause, Billy said, “it’s about Eleven, isn’t it? Max said she’s been acting weird.”

Steve looked down, fiddling with Billy’s hands in his. “She’s under a lot of pressure.”

When Billy didn’t say anything, Steve looked up. He had an odd look on his face, like he already understood something that hadn’t even been explained to him.

“Do you wanna tell me about it?” He asked quietly.

And Steve felt his steely resolve crumble right there. He told him all of it, about his shitty past with Nancy but how they’ve healed and Ron and his therapy sessions and how he’d been helping El find the gate. He even told Billy about his parents, and how they didn’t understand him and punished him for it, although Billy had already known. And Billy listened with every intent in the world, and nodded along as Steve got to the worst parts of his spiel. 

And, when he was done, red in the face and exhausted, they squished their bodies even closer and finished the rest of the now-cold meal. The atmosphere was serene, and Steve could feel calmness coming off Billy in waves. The Cosby Show played on the television in front of them, but once the food was gone, so was their interest in the tv. 

Three hours later and the sun long gone, Billy kissed Steve’s red, swollen lips one last time and dipped away into the night. 

And Steve smiled, content and full and sated, full of warmness and Billy’s lasting impression.

But, as he looked out at the dark horizon, miles and miles of a sort of blackness that could swallow him whole, the back of his neck crawled. It was so dark that not even the moon dare make an appearance. His smile slowly slipped away and his eyebrows scrunched because he felt something was coming. Not now, but big, and deadly, and _soon._

xxx

  
  
  



	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It was times like this that he understood why 8 months ago, he wanted to die."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh I'm back! Did you guys think I was never coming back? ;)
> 
> Truth be told, I got so so busy. I was trying so hard to get this fic done before I went back to school, and, obviously, that didn't happen. Then I decided to split this one up because I had wayyy too much in one chapter. So, here ya go. 
> 
> Any mistakes are my own! I'll spend the next couple of days re-reading and fixing any errors. 
> 
> Just a warning, a certain character (we hate) uses a homophobic slur towards the end of the chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_Friday February 15, 1985_

The early morning drizzle was cold, almost too cold, which undeniably set the scene fittingly. 

In front of Steve, Barbara’s parents sobbed into handkerchiefs as the Funeral Director drawled on. Many people came out of their houses in support for the Holland family, even despite the shitty weather. Her casket was a soft silver, and it made Steve’s eyes wince. He didn’t know her well, but he knew the flashy, gaudy color would’ve made her (missing) lifeless body rise from the grave (upside down) to strangle somebody. 

His downcast eyes shifted left to Nancy’s sullen frame, and watched a drop of water trail down her delicate cheek. She didn’t make a move to swipe it away, and it slipped around the soft curve of her jaw. 

He felt a soft ache in the back of his heart. Family was a foreign concept to him, caring parents even more so. His feet quietly shuffled at the grass below as he watched water roll off his neatly waxed leather dress shoes. 

He wasn’t the reason Barb was in dead, per se, but he _was_ a main contributor to the fact that her parents were sobbing over an empty casket and not getting closure to her disappearance. 

Needless to say, he felt like shit. He couldn’t imagine what Nancy was feeling right now. 

_Not quite rain, not quite snow, nothing’s falling from the sky but the air is wet-_

Her parents placed a rose onto the top of her casket, and the sound of their grief was enough to bring anyone to tears. Enough to hastily make him swipe at his eyes. Nancy grasped the limp hand next to his side and he was grateful. 

xxx

Sweat dripped off his brow and slipped down the bridge of his nose. 

Breathe in. Out. Chest heaving. Focus. 

He palmed the ball, two quick bounces on the court floor. The blood rushing through his ears almost completely drowned out the vivacious roar of the crowd. The student section chanted his name.

_‘King Steve, King Steve, King St-’_

He hurled the ball to Billy’s jittery frame across the three-point line, pivoting around a Rambler and dodging another. This particular Rambler assigned to block him was like gum stuck to his shoe - no matter where Steve went, the stocky, acne-ridden player followed. He huffed in anger as another Rambler swiped the ball from Billy and tore down the court, making a left-handed two-point layup. 

64-66. They were losing. 

His eyes bounced up to the time. 34 seconds. 

Fourth quarter. Championship. His lungs heaved. His throat was dry. He needed-

Billy’s arm grazed his as they tore back down the court towards the other team’s basket. Steve didn’t look at his face, couldn’t, but knew that even sweat-covered and brows furrowed, he was still gorgeous and _Steve’s_ and even in the middle of their championship basketball game with the whole town watching, he made sure to let Steve know he was still there.

Billy Hargrove was a lot of things, but selfish wasn’t one of them.

He could do this. He could focus. 

It took him all afternoon to get his mind in the right place after the funeral, and well into the second quarter before he could shake the anxious dread that had attached itself to him at the cemetery. 

_Through the nose, out the mouth-_

Tommy had the ball safely dribbling between his legs, shouldering a Rambler twice his size. Even from across the court, Steve could see he was never going to make that shot in a hundred years. 

19 seconds. 

“Tommy!” He hollered, but the yell was in vain, because the crowd was roaring and nothing could be heard. Acne-face was sticking his ass in Steve’s thigh and blocking his view with broad shoulders. Tommy passed the ball to Billy, who was being double-teamed by the Rambler’s biggest men and being pushed backwards by the second. Through the scuffle, he looked as if he was contemplating passing the ball to Jones, but they both knew Jones couldn’t make a shot even if it was a free throw. 

6 seconds. 

Steve found a narrow opening and slipped around acne-face, opening his arms wide. Billy’s peripheral vision caught him and shot the gap between the lumbering guards - the ball landed safely in Steve’s hands and his feet skirted outside the three-point line.

2 seconds. 

His knees bent on their own accord, and the ball left his fingertips, feeling acne-face shouldering his back and arms flailing, and the 0.0 buzzer echoed around in his ears. Time was in suspense. Steve watched the ball sail through the air, and his feet hit the ground again, sweaty hair flopping all over the place. 

The ball hit the net with precision, swooshing right through. 

The tense crowd erupted into cheers, deafeningly loud as Steve _breathed._

67-66. They won. 

Tommy was first to him, jumping and whooping and grabbing his shoulders. The rest of his teammates followed suit, and Hawkin’s student section flooded the court in celebration, hollering cheers. His team crowded him in excitement, hoisting Steve up in the air. After a moment, he was placed safely back on the ground and his team dispersed to celebrate with their own group of friends. Tommy slipped away from his side, no doubt going to find the championship trophy, and Billy replaced his spot. 

“Good shot, Harrington!” He yelled over the commotion. Steve grinned. 

“Thanks, I-”

“Good game, shitbrains!” Robin’s fist connected with his bicep, and although it was meant as a congratulatory bump, it still stung. 

“Ouch.” He laughed.

“Thanks, asswipe.” Billy shot back, all smiles and no heat. She grinned, but it was quickly replaced with concern. 

“Stevie,” she said. “I didn’t see your folks in the crowd.”

Against his will, his fucking heart dropped out of his chest, which was stupid because why would he expect them to show? Billy was looking gravely at him as well, but it didn’t matter because he didn’t need them to be here. The most important people in his life were standing in this huddle in the middle of the basketball court and he was happy.

“Ahh, well,” he tried to cover it up. “Probably had bunko or something tonight. It’s a miracle they actually decided to be in town for the weekend. I must’ve really won ‘em over with my ‘it’s the biggest and last game of my basketball career’ spiel,” he awkwardly coughed out a fake laugh, trying to figure out why he was covering for them. “Besides, you guys are more important than them anyway.”

Robin smiled, a pitiful sort of thing, and gripped his sweaty shoulder. Anything he could have said wouldn’t have put her mind at ease, because she knew what his parents were all about. Billy, who had been unusually quiet, spoke up. 

“Don’t worry about them,” Steve didn’t know if he was talking to him or Robin. “You got us.” He cleared his throat, trying to change the subject and release the clench he knew was in Steve’s heart. “Anyways, are you going to Tina’s party, Robin?”

“Shit yes,” she said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Besides, she’s having not one, not two, but three keg stands. You two could finally get to the bottom of who really has the crown of Keg King.”

Steve scoffed and Billy guffawed. “Me, obviously-”

But, all the sudden, Robin was grabbing their wrists and anxiously stomping her red converse all over the place. 

“There’s Heather! I’m gonna to talk to her.”

Steve paused, taken aback. “Wait, you guys are talking?” Robin blushed, acting distracted by a freckle on her arm. “Well, Smith rearranged seats in math, and we sit by each other now, and we started talking, and now we’re gonna hang out sometime.”

“Robin!” Steve exclaimed. “When did this happen?!”

“This morning,” she said bashfully. “I’ll see you guys at Tina’s!” 

Billy and Steve looked at each other incredulously, stunned by the quick pace. Billy low-whistled a cat call after her and Steve yelled, “go get ‘em, tiger!”

She flipped them off behind her, then disappeared into the crowd. 

A group of kids walking past him congratulated Steve on a good game, giving him knuckles and even tossing Billy a compliment too. When Steve turned his attention back to Billy, the boy was staring at him. 

“What?” Steve laughed, but Billy didn’t say anything, just continued to chuckle and stare, like Steve was the 8th wonder of the world. 

“Billy!” Steve was laughing now, too, and he knew that if anyone was looking, it made them look like secret-sharing, giggling schoolgirls, but he didn’t care. 

“I’m serious, you know. That was a damn good shot.”

“That was a damn good pass,” Steve countered, shrugging. “I got lucky.”

“That ain’t luck, pretty boy. That’s skill and you know it.” Steve grinned back, because this was exactly where he wanted to be. 

“Are you going to Tina’s party?” 

Steve’s shit-eating grin remained. “Plannin’ on it.”

“Well, if you want to, we could, ya know, ride together…” but his voice faded out fast as Steve’s eyes zeroed in on Hopper, standing stoically against the entrance door. The gym was slowly clearing out, and the man wasn’t hard to miss. His stomach sank because he knew. 

It was time.

His adrenaline was still pumping from the game, and his arms were jittery, and it was time.

“...Steve? What’s wrong?” His eyes swiveled back to Billy’s blue ones, realizing he’d zoned out. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “There’s something I have to do, first, but I’ll meet up with you, okay? At Tina’s.”

Billy’s brows furrowed, still concerned. “This isn’t about your parents, is it? Because I told you, it doesn’t matter-”

“No, Bill, it’s not.” Steve smiled and grabbed his hand at his side. “I’ll see ya later. Save me a spot on the keg.” 

And he wove through the dwindling sea of dawdling people on the court and followed Hopper out the door, leaving Billy confusedly staring at his disappeared figure.

xxx

The ground was slick as they both stepped out of the Bronco, the frigid air numbing Steve’s joints quick. In hindsight, he should have probably changed - his thin jersey and skimpy shorts definitely weren’t going to cut it in this weather, especially in the dark, without the sun.

The Lab looked even scarier at night. Windows were shattered out, boarded up. The bricks loomed over them like they knew something - something that the trio didn’t.

Steve shuddered. 

The snow crunched under his cleats as they made their way to the chain locked front doors. He glanced at El, who didn’t seem apprehensive in the slightest. 

“Wait! Wait!” The three whipped around to see none other than Dustin bounded behind them, waving his hand and slipping around in the ground. 

“Henderson,” Hop growled, mustache quivering. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I want to help! I want to help. I was in the woods, over there,” he pointed to the distance. “Checkin’ out that junkyard? And look what I found.” With his other hand, he held up a metal pipe with… _something_ wet on the other end. Steve grimaced. 

“Is that… goop?”

Dustin nodded, hair bouncing around. “From a demogorgon. And it’s fresh.”

Hopper faltered for a second, nothing but his icy breath between them. “So they _are_ alive.”

“And close.” El whispered. Hopper put his arm around her, gently pulling her to him. 

“Come on, let’s go.” 

They slipped past the plastic covering flapping on the broken glass door as their eyes tried to adjust to the dark. Steve had never been inside, but the place was wrecked; bodies of employees lay scattered in the foyer and down the hallway, some clutching walkie talkies and makeshift weapons, but all covered in blood. He dug the flashlight out of the pack on his back and gripped the bat with his other hand, shining his light down one hall, then down another. 

“Do you guys know where we’re going?”

“Yeah,” Hop grunted, stepping over a deceased body. “This way.” El stayed glued to his hip as they made their way down a hall, lights above flickering ominously and Steve refrained from rolling his eyes - if he wasn’t so on edge, this would have been hilariously overdone in the scare department. Next to him, Dustin’s converse clumped on the tile nonchalantly. 

“Dustin!” He hissed. “Shut it.”

“Sorry,” he whispered back. 

“Listen, I’m responsible for you in here, so just… take it easy okay?” The younger boy nodded enthusiastically. 

The group turned a corner and found a stairwell. It was even creepier than the long hallway they just came from, if that was possible. The first floor descent was easy - Hopper leading the pack and Steve as the well-weaponized caboose. He tried to keep looking behind him, to make sure nothing was silently creeping along with them. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he turned to see red eyes looking back, or a giant, drooling flower head. Probably pass out. 

He almost ran into Dustin as he realized the group had come to a stop. 

“Stay here.” Hop commanded ahead. The older man eased down the flight of stairs and out of view. Eleven turned to look back at Steve, eyes wide, and he shrugged. The flickering industrial lights skittered across her face, across her new black wardrobe. 

If Steve thought about it too much, not the blackness of her clothing but the darkness surrounding him, surrounding them - he wouldn’t make it another step. 

He closed his eyes for a second and felt the ghost of Billy’s arm brushing up against his in a whole sea of people and pushed air out his nose. 

“Ahh, shit.” His eyes shot open as he heard Hop sound below. Gripping the handle of his crude weapon, he led the children down the stairs and around the corner to a man in a white coat propped against a wall, bleeding profusely. 

“Doc Owens,” Hopper knelt next to the man and began removing his belt. “This is Eleven, Steve and Dustin. Kids, Doc Owens.” Steve nodded in acknowledgement while Dustin chirped up his greeting. Didn’t seem to register in the wounded man’s eyes though, because he was fixated on El. 

“She’s been staying in my cabin for about a year, and she’s going to save our asses, and maybe, when this is all over, you can help her live a normal life.” Hopper tightened the belt around the man’s thigh threateningly, ending with, “just a thought.” He then gave the Doctor a gun and the group continued down. 

At the end of the stairs, the air seemed to get murkier, and it became obvious they’d found the basement. Particles floated through the air, freely moving about. The air was thicker, and Steve knew they were getting close. He stuck his mouth in his elbow, trying to regulate what sort of gunk was entering his body orally. 

The reached the opening to a larger room of sorts, and he could hear the creatures warbling just around the corner. By the sound of it, there was more than one, and everyone else knew it too. The quartet jumped back, for cover. The last thing they needed was to lose the surprise factor they had. 

“Shit,” Hopper swore under his breath. His back pressed against the cold metal wall and tried to quiet his breathing. Steve attempted to do the same, but his tries were futile as the noises carried on. Pressed to his side, Dustin trembled. 

“Still got your bat?” Hop asked, eyes clenched. He nodded as his hand flexed around the wood. “Alright.”

Hopper held up a hand. 

3 fingers. 

2.

1.

The group charged around the corner, Hop leading the small, ragtag army ready for a fight. But, the noises were coming from a location deeper in the room. They hesitantly kept walking, feeling as if the ground were made of eggshells. 

Steve’s eyes traced on broken glass everywhere. Yellow flood lights bounced around the room, panicky and urgent. He was sweating again, much like the basketball game, but the room was far too cold to be dressed in his uniform. If he were even remotely aware of his body right now, his legs would be shivering and his arms covered in goosebumps - if he had the extra blood supply for that. But, his adrenaline was pumping and his mind was on fight-or-flight. He mentally clocked the location of each person in their group about every four seconds, especially Dustin. 

They slowed, then stopped. 

The hole that lay in front of them was astronomically larger and more disgusting than Steve had anticipated. Through a pane of broken glass, the hole - or, _gate,_ he assumed - reflected the flashing lights, but also something inside - something orange and red and piercing and _glowing._ The edges of the gate gave off the impression that it had been spreading. The dirty blackness looked crusted over, but alive and breathing. 

Steve didn’t know what the hell this was, but it sucked him in and repealed him at the same time and he wanted to kill it. 

They located an elevator quickly. That seemed to be the only way to get close to the gate, and Dustin aided Steve in pulling the rusted wheel in order to get it moving. It lowered them down at a slow pace, and the closer they got, the more Steve could see. 

Lines like spaghetti noodles that Nancy’s mom makes were strung from one side to the other. It was an expanse that mirrored the art of a one-way cobweb. These lines prevented the group from being able to see deep in the hole, which Steve might have been grateful for. 

Beyond the lines, though, he could hear the growling and roaring of the demogorgons. He could see outlines of the beasts through the lining. The red lighting reflected off Eleven’s face as she peered at the gate, and he realized how terrified she was. 

Strong, definitely. But scared. 

He reached around Dustin to pat her back, and she grabbed Hop’s hand for reassurance. The air was thick - Steve wished he had some goggles or something, to keep the minuscule, floating pieces of debris out of his face. 

Hopper cranked the cart to a stop and they swayed. The elevator was smack in the middle of the length of the gate, and it was so bright from whatever was glowing in the hole that Steve shielded his eyes with his forearm to see. Dustin was still pressed up against his hip, and he was glad. The younger boy wasn’t saying much, which was understandable because this was all so overwhelming. 

Eleven nodded at Hop, and he took a step back. She held up a shaky hand, took deep breaths, and the hole’s innards burst yellow. Her head trembled, knees quivering and hand wavering. Another burst of light and a screech from the gate. Her nose began bleeding, running past her lips and down her chin. 

The shadow of a giant beast arose from the hole, pressing against the horizontal lining. Its head was an oblong triangle, body skinning and tall. Steve balked, and behind him, Dustin yelled, “what the fuck is that?!”

The beast roared, once, ear-shattering. Steve’s hands flew up to cover his ears desperately, dropping his bat in the process. Dustin and Hopper did the same. Eleven didn’t falter though, but instead swung her other hand up to reinforce her efforts. Both nostrils were bloody now. 

But then, Dustin screamed behind him. “Ahh, Steve! Help!” He whirled around to see a demogorgon clinging to their elevator and clawing at Dustin’s jacket, attempting to pull him off the shaft.

“Demogorgons!” Hop yelled, swinging his rifle up to shoot them off the elevator rungs and neighboring wall. 

Steve lunged at the boy, grasping his arms in an attempt to not lose him. He pulled and strained, but the demogorgon pulled harder, and almost took them both to the black desolation below them. 

“Hold on!” He hollered above the noise of chaos. In a Hail-Mary move, with one hand still gripping Dustin, he sprang for his spiked bat sitting still on the ground and made a large arc motion, swinging around and down _and-_

The demogorgon’s flower head flew clean off its body and tumbled down, down into the darkness. Steve pushed the boy to the ground and made a swipe at another, and he finished that one off too. 

Hopper was targeting them on the wall and picking them off like flies. Steve glanced at the gate that El was furiously working on, and a yellow ring of fire was encroaching on the surface. 

“Shit, that’s gotta be good, right?” He yelled above the chaos. A demogorgon had perched itself on top of their floating carriage, and was about to make Hopper’s unassuming head its breakfast, but before he could even think, Steve dove to the older man and bashed the demogorgon’s head in. It, too, went limped and rushed towards the darkness below. 

Behind him, El screamed, guttural, and a little wet, like her lungs were full of blood. Both Hopper and him turned to see her feet rise from the metal floor, face emaciated and eyes red, and with one final screech, the gate closed with a burst of light and then, nothing. 

From the blast, Steve was knocked back, barely upright against the metal railing. His hands searched for Dustin, eyes unseeing, and when they found purchase, he scrambled to pull the boy to him. Around him, through squinted and watery eyes, he witnessed tens and tens of demogorgons falling. The pit now reflected a soft blue instead of the fiery red, and amidst a delusional brain, it was almost… 

_Beautiful._ Ethereal.

Like Hawkin’s first seasonal snow flurry. 

The haze in the air remained, but the amount of floating particles seemed to lessen by the second. Hop and El were hugging now, a quietly sniffling bundle on the floor. 

“You did it kid. You did it. You did good.”

It was over. 

Steve hugged Dustin to his chest, breathing out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding. 

It was over. 

xxx

The drive back seemed forever. It was like time was suspended in place.

After El closed the gate, the quartet made their way to ground level, slowly and sorely, but relieved nonetheless. Hopper swung by the high school to retrieve Steve’s car - the parking lot was deserted at this time of night, _or morning,_ he wasn’t really sure what time it was. He and Dustin wiped their dirty, sweaty bodies off with the baby wipes stashed away in the glove compartment and made for home. 

Steve was finally able to stop his shaking knees and focus on pushing the gas pedal to the floor. He kept anxiously glancing at Dustin in the passenger seat, nerves shot to all hell, and on the umpteenth time, was called out for it.

“Steve!” The boy groaned. “You look at me one more time, I’m gonna wet willy you.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, readjusting his death grip on the wheel. “I’m just-”, he sighed. “All that shit we went through, man. You’re too young to see any of that.”

“What do you mean?” Dustin's eyes were incredulous. “That was incredible! Did you see the demogorgon’s guts?! They went _pshewww,"_ he made a large gesture with his hands. “And the gate! It was massive and grumbly and talk about massive!” He fell against his seat, a smile on his face. “That was fucking _epic."_

Steve snorted at his dramatics and parked his car against the curb on the street. His elation was short lived, though - his stomach sank as he recognized the car taking up his spot in the driveway. Dustin recognized it too, and shot Steve a nervous glance. 

“Steve…” 

“It’s okay, buddy.” Steve couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sleek black car, knees immediately aching again.

“Do you want to come stay at my place?” Dustin’s small voice pierced through his haze, and it struck him how young the boy was. He was just a middle school kid, probably five years younger than him, or more. All this shit that had gone down, with the demogorgon and now Steve’s family drama, he was _too young to deal_ with _any of this._

“Dustin, that’s okay. You just get on home, and tell your momma you’re sorry for bein’ so late, okay? I’ll be fine.” Steve forced a smile through clenched teeth and tried so damn hard to look like everything was going to be okay, but his stomach was doing flips and he had a real bad feeling about the next couple of minutes.

Still, Dustin wasn’t convinced. He eyed Steve warily. “Don’t let them hit you.”

And Steve could have cried right then and there, because he wished to death that he could prevent that. He smiled again at the younger boy, ruffled his hair, and forced the water in his eyes to dispel as they exited his Bimmer. Dustin swiped his bike off the sidewalk and took off down the road, lit only with the yellowed street lamps. Even from all the way down the road, Steve could see his breath as he faded into the distance. His own breath blew white in the air. His toes were nothing short of ice cubes in his cleats as he stood solid on the concrete. Even minutes after Dustin’s frame disappeared, he stared off into the distance. 

It was times like this that he understood why 8 months ago, he wanted to die. 

The walk to the porch hurt him. It was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other. The feeling of dread in his stomach made him want to puke. Maybe he could just slip in unnoticed, or maybe his father would be alright tonight-

The latch to the front door clicked open and he gently pushed his way in, closing it softly behind him. He discarded his gym back in the steps leading upstairs and immediately, the smell of alcohol hit his nostrils like a freight train.

That wasn’t good.

Glass shattered down the hall and around the corner, towards the kitchen. He heard the tale-tell burst, then skittering noise as each broken piece bounced off the cold floor.

Fuck, that really wasn’t good.

“Steven?” In his focus on the noise, he didn’t hear his mother coming down the stairs.

“Mother.”

At the sound of their voices, his father came around the corner.

“Grab your things. You’re done here in Hawkins. We’re all done here.” His father moved around him in a flurry, too fast for Steve’s tired head to keep up. 

“Hellooo to you too.” Steve deadpanned. His father shoved a packing box into his hands, and he grunted. Looking around, he finally noticed all the boxes. Where his mother’s china hutch used to sit, brown boxes took its place. Instead of the furniture being in its usual place, the ottoman and recliner were pushed against one wall.

_His father wasn’t kidding._

“Whaaa, wait, dad, I-“

“Steven, this isn’t up for a fucking debate! Get your shit and let’s go!”

“Wait, why-”

“You come in here at this ungodly hour in the morning, looking like a street rat covered in shit and you expect me to believe that you’re, what? Doing fine here in this hick town?”

“I am doing fine! This is just,” Steve gestured to his filthy clothes, greasy hair flopping about, empty packing box falling to the ground. “-there was a problem and I had to help Sheriff Hopper.”

“Sheriff Hopper?” His father guffawed, stumbling into the kitchen counter, the alcohol well into effect. “Sheriff _Hopper_ wanted you? To help him? He arrested you, Steve! Only a few months ago!”

“Yes! He wanted my help! And it’s been half a year, dad! He’s forgotten about it!”

“Hopper’s a piece of shit and a drunk! He couldn’t remember where his own dick was even if he tried!” His father’s words were slurring together.

“Dad, I like it here!” Steve groaned, holding his forehead. “I have friends here! And I-I’m doing okay in school now, and I just won the 2A basketball championship that _you didn’t even come to,_ and-”

“Friends? You mean that little Wheeler girl? Or that bastard Hagan?” His dad scoffed, grabbing another bottle of whiskey. Steve saw the signs as they came, knew he was pushing it, but couldn’t stop himself.

“And Billy, and Robin, and Dus-”

_“Billy Hargrove?”_ The room went dead silent, his mother stilled her packing movements in the corner. “You’re friends with _him?"_

Steve turned up his nose, and all sense of self-preservation went out the window. “We’re more than friends, actually.”

Nothing.

And then-

He genuinely wasn’t ready for the first blow, which, in hindsight, was stupid, because he should have seen it coming from a mile away. His back hit the wall, sending a shock of pain down his spine. The second hit was right to his nose, a stunning sort of hit that made him see stars. In the background, he could hear his mother call out. The third, and fourth, and fifth, and all the rest of the hits were brutal, shaking him up good and bloody.

Then came the kitchen plate, which was smashed over his head. At some point, his knees gave out, and his eyelids swelled, along with his bottom lip. Out of instinct, or habit, his forearms tried to block the onslaught, but his dad was taller, and had 50 pounds on him, at least.

Time slowed, his dazed complex couldn’t register anything around him, but that wasn’t enough to deter him. He kicked his father in the knee with a limp foot, and that did the trick. His old man stumbled back, crashing into the kitchen table and cussing up a storm. Steve staggered to his feet, grunting in pain, and took off.

Tears of frustration and pain and years of neglect ran hot down his face as he stumbled down the steps of his front porch and down the walk, gripping his shoulder, trying desperately to stave the white hot fire occupying it. In the fray, it must have got sliced, and probably dislocated, because as he looked down at it through blurry eyes, blood was soaking through his already-dirty white shirt. His vision blurred, then doubled, and he couldn’t quite think straight, and he _knew_ he wasn’t supposed to be driving in his current state, and he couldn’t breathe through his nose, but-

“Steven Harrington! Get your ass back here! You punk! You wasteful piece of shit! Any fag is no son of mine! Look what this damn town did to you! Look what that white piece of trash Hargrove did to you!”

His father cursed at him from the front steps, frost hanging onto every word. Steve flung himself into his Bimmer, anger sitting hot in his veins, knowing he was bleeding all over his seat and the interior but _not caring-_

And drove.

xxx


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The quarry gave him life all those months ago, and now, it would take it away just as quick."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! 
> 
> This is the last official chapter for this story! Chapter 15 will be a short epilogue that I felt was necessary to include, and then after that, we're 100% done!
> 
> What a ride.
> 
> Just a fair warning, this chapter does include suicidal ideation and thoughts of suicide, as well as a homophobic father.
> 
> Also, I decided to backtrack just a little bit from where chapter 13 ended, for better clarification and my own satisfaction, in case you might have been confused.
> 
> As per usual, I'll spend the next few days cleaning this one up and fixing any mistakes I may have missed the first few go arounds.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Saturday February 16, 1985_

They say you get used to the pain. Steve would never, no matter how long he was alive, get used to this kind of hair-splitting, agonizing pain. 

It was like pain had become a part of him, the hurt never went away.

Flashes of Steve’s small, conceited life blipped before his eyes. 

He knew this might really be the end for him, because the look of rage in his father’s face, and the vein in his forehead didn’t bode well for Steve’s well-being. 

In a scrabble, he took off to the front door, worn court shoes gripping the floor with practiced ease. His knees protested in pain at the sudden movement, sending sparks up his sciatic nerve. Every lunge to the door made his head _spin-_

Who would have thought the tough conditioning from years of playing basketball would have prepared him for escaping a murderous father, of all things?

_Blow after blow, smashing through the cartilage on the end of his nose-_

He kept running, desperately, any sort of common sense departed from him. 

_-obliterating his jaw, absolutely cutting the living shit out of his cheek, right below, too close to his eye-_

His feet skid across the white slick on the walkway, catching himself with one hand and picking through his keyring with the other. His father bellowed behind him, nonsensical cursing and promises of pain. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Steve swore, feeling his stomach in his throat. Tiny pieces of asphalt from the road stuck to the side of his blood-slicked arm where he slipped, and as he yanked on the car door, his elbow screamed up in protest. 

_A lost fingernail somewhere, a horrible cramp in his leg that wouldn’t go away-_

His engine roared to life, and that was the best noise he’d ever heard. His jaw quivered as he mumbled praises towards the Bimmer and shot out onto the street, paying no mind to other traffic - not that there was any, at 4:13 A.M. 

His anxious eyes couldn’t keep away from the rear view mirror, thumbs bouncing around on the steering wheel anxiously, foot on the pedal and to the floor of the car. He thought he’d cry, but the pure adrenaline coursing through his veins made him too jittery, too skittish.

_His own fucking father-_

The metallic taste in his mouth rang true, a dribble down the back of his throat and in between his teeth, making him look crazed and animalistic when he glanced in the mirror. He knew his brain was about five miles behind him, still stuck in the moment of that first _hit._ This was all so surreal, but also predictable - his father had always been so unstable, so erratic and emotional unavailable. 

He knew being homosexual was kind of a big deal to his father, to the whole town of Hawkins, the sheltered dive it was, but _why did it matter?_

Steve tore through town like a bat out of hell, not thinking about where he was going but just driving. His body knew where to go, though, knew every time something like this happened. Oddly enough, the quarry was Steve’s shelter, his refuge, his escape.

His brain had turned to mush. He couldn’t think, _he couldn’t think, where was he going-_

The long dirt road leading up to the water itself was almost tortuous. Steve’s shaky commands couldn’t make the car go faster, and he had to consciously work to keep his breathing even.

_Where was Ron when he actually needed him?_

It began to snow lightly as he skidded his car to a stop along the gravel, small spots sticking to his windshield. His nose was leaking, whether it be blood or snot, he wasn’t sure, and didn’t have time to look as his knees gave out and almost inoperable limbs hit the cold layer of fresh powder on the ground. Steve’s body screamed pain, and he let out a hoarse yell in anguish as his knees and the cut up palms of his hands collided with the ground. His exposed arms were numb, beating heart trying to get feeling back down to his fingertips, ears ringing, head hung low and damp hair flopping red speckles everywhere-

The pause of rapid movement, for just a fleeting moment, made him realize how he must look - the absurdity of it all - and he inhaled a sharp gasp, followed by a long exhale of wailing panic as he briefly took stock of his abdomen. 

Blood. So much blood. It ran across his fingers like a snake, twirling around his fingers and down his wrist, fingernails dislodged and missing.

_King Steve, King Steve, KingSteveKingSteveKingSte-_

_Oh, how the mighty fall._

Another guilt-induced quote from Pastor Robbins.

His desperate attempt to get to his feet left a bloody mess of slush in the snow, all crime scene-like and alarming. Steve wondered how much blood he was actually losing, how his hair was wet now, really wet, and drenched metallic-red when he pulled his hand away.

_Panic, panic, what the fuck, his dad was coming to murder him, literally kill him-_

The dusting of snow disguised the unofficial pathway, and like a demon crawling their way out of Hell, Steve used his hands to claw his way to the seemingly forever expanse of ground, ignoring the bitter bite of cold against raw fingers.

His scramble to the 40-foot drop was only means for an escape, a sluggish, laborious burst of strength, but when he reached the edge, what was he going to do then? Nowhere to go expect _down,_ but anything was better than his father getting his hands on him again. 

Either the jump or his father, at this point, would kill him.

His dad’s voice echoed around in his head. He’d had threats like this before, promises of death and worse, but this - _this_ was too real. The tightness of his father’s face was too serious, like the threat was stamped into time, official. 

His court shoes slid around on the frozen ground, not their usual environment. The numbness of his fingers didn’t provide any help to keep the fringe out of his eyes, but it almost didn’t matter - the condensation from his breath created a fog that he nearly couldn’t see through anyway. 

He slipped over a rock and clambered over an old tire, scrambling for the edge of the quarry. 

This was the ultimate sense of irony, Steve knew. A bitter, lonely feeling of dread washed over him, because this wasn’t how he wanted it to go, and a sob rose in this throat, quick. He was in disbelief to think of considering this again, but the feeling left him quickly - his irrational thoughts popcorned all over the place, too fast to hang onto any of them.

It was going to end where it all began - this quarry, 8 months ago, brought him purpose, brought him another reason to live, _Billy,_ unbeknownst to him at the time, and now, it would be the gateway to his end. Snow had started to really fall now, soft white flakes that exuded a sense of calm, and he wanted to puke. 

The quarry gave him life all those months ago, and now, it would take it away just as quick. 

He’d been too afraid to live, but also too afraid to die - he couldn’t jump off the cliff eight months ago, but now, he was ready. It was almost like he was righting the wrongs of the past. Fixing his cowardliness.

Steve wasn’t a poet, far from it, but this was almost fitting - it made sense, this way, that where his purpose began, it would end. He’d jump and that’d be it. Whatever his father had planned for him, this would be better. It took him years, far too long to realize that. Steve didn’t need him, didn’t need his mother or their lavish and bullshit lifestyle or the mansion or even his Bimmer, because all that came with pain, pain that Steve had held onto for years and years and _for what?_

His feet slipped out from under him and he _oofed_ when his back made contact with the frozen ground. He just laid, ice biting into his skin, staring at the star-spotted abyss, eyes getting dangerously heavy. His very skeleton, the structure keeping him up, keeping him _going,_ ached to his very core, a kind of ache that was physical, definitely - but also emotional. He just wanted a father, a real one, that would play baseball with him in the front yard, and scold him on taking a sip of alcohol and would embarrass him in front of his friends.

Steve’s nearly numb face felt tiny drops slide down his temples and into his hair, because this _sucked_ and he was only _seventeen_ and life wasn’t _fair._

He was his own person. He didn’t need to be ruled and governed by his dad’s tyrannous reign. Steve would rather die than deal with him any longer. 

He’d rather die.

A flood opened up in him at the realization. All these people in his life - Ron the therapist, Ruby, the mailman that had always been so kind to him even though Steve had picked on his daughter in Junior High, the principal - and it didn’t matter because he’d never be able to escape his dad.

Never.

He staggered to his feet and stumbled closer to the ledge, feeling more lethargically relieved and delirious than he’d been in a long fucking time. The soles of his shoes had long worn, he owned 50 pairs but only this pair ever saw action - they slipped and slid on the frosty aggregate, meant for a hardwood court floor instead of snow. Wind from the oncoming snowstorm whipped his hair - from experience, it’d always been windy up there on the ledge, Steve knew. 

The tears that finally came were ones of liberation, not desolation. He was ready. He was ready to be free, finally, so ready he could barely think straight. 

If only he’d been able to make it past his 18th birthday, maybe things would’ve been different.

_This is the only way,_ he told himself, gulping down chilled air. _They’ll never leave you alone, he’ll never leave you alone. Even in the Hamptons, the weight is always in the back of your mind._

“Steve!” He heard a holler behind him, and whipped around. 

_No, no, nonono, he didn’t need to be involved in this, please-_

“Billy?!” He yelled, whipping around, confusion decorating his face. 

Billy eased his way over to him, slipping around on the terrain gently. 

“Steve!” He yelled across the falling flakes. “What-“ he almost fell, but caught himself, snaking closer. “What the fuck are you _doing?"_

The roar of his father’s Chevrolet Chevelle grew behind him, keeping in time with his rapidly beating heart. Both the boy’s heads jerked in the direction, and Steve’s eyes slammed shut. 

_This wasn’t how he wanted things to go._

But Billy was no dummy. 

“Stevie,” his voice lowered, eyes skimming over the other boy's frame, brows furrowing in both anger and worry. _“What happened?”_

“How did you find me here?” Steve’s voice cracked, cradling his smashed elbow. 

Billy eyed him, concern dancing across his beautiful face. “You never showed at the party- Steve, what the fuck is going on?! You’re fuckin’ bloody, Steve, are you alright?” His eyes skipped to the car that was getting closer by the second. “Is that your _dad?"_

Steve nodded, and the motion made him nauseous. 

The snowflakes fell steadily between them now, softly, gently, ironically. The only light illuminating the dismal scene was the yellow headlights of both cars and the full moon’s radiance. 

_-expensive vase smashing into the tile, shards bouncing off the floor, into Steve’s bare biceps-_

“Shit,” the blonde boy mumbled, realization flashing across his face at the sight of the rapidly approaching car. “Step away from the ledge, Stevie. I mean it.”

Steve’s feet were unconsciously shifting from toe to heel, like he was preparing for something. He wasn’t super close, but if he leapt, one last burst of speed, he’d make it before Billy could reach him. 

_-all sorts of the most vile slurs, his mother weeping in the background, a kick to the knee, smashing his flailing elbow in a door frame, causing damage to both Steve and the actual structure of the house-_

“I’m done, Billy. I’m done,” a dry sob rose in his throat, quick and raw and desperate. _He was so desperate._ “I can’t anymore! Every other weekend, I get the shit beat out of me by people who I should trust! People that should fucking love me!” His good arm gestured angrily in the cold air, chill biting at the exposed skin on his arms. 

“Harrington, listen-“ Billy was close enough now that he didn’t have to yell, and Steve heard the sharpness, _the urgency_ in his voice like it was slicing through his skull. “What are you doing, man? This-“ he gestured to the semi-frozen water just feet and a drop away from their shaking frames. “This isn’t the answer.”

“Look at me, Billy! Look at my fucking skin-” he gestured down to himself, looking at the bloodied, white uniform. “-he did this! I can’t- I can’t, anymore.”

“Stevie,” Billy huffed, and the whiteness blew right past his face. This close, the desperation and anxiety were written across his face, clear as day. “We were here months ago, remember? And-and you decided this wasn’t what you wanted, that you were too scared to jump, remember? I need you to remember, baby.”

“Yes, I remember,” he moaned.

“I’m here for _you_ , Steve, more than I’ve ever been for anyone else. It’s not just you now, it’s _us,_ me and you together, and if that bastard of a father really is going to kill you, then - he’s going to have to kill me too.”

And Steve’s heart shattered into a million pieces, because while that would have been his worst nightmare, that’s what he needed to hear. 

Irrational thinking wasn’t the answer here. He’d never benefited from spontaneous thoughts anyway.

Billy was the answer. And he was kissing the scrape on Steve’s hand with tender lips and standing steadfast next to him, watching Father Harrington’s car grow closer at an alarming rate. He then slid off his denim jacket despite the nearly subzero temperatures to press it along the glass slice on the side of Steve’s temple.

“Billy, I love you. And you’re a jackass, but a kind, patient, sarcastic jackass who deserves better than me and my dysfunctional life and piece of shit father,” Steve mumbled, and Billy’s administrative movements halted. He pulled his head back to look Steve right in the eyes.

“You-you _love_ me?” His voice was timid, quiet, out of character for the brash boy.

“Yeah,” he replied, courage coming out of mental exhaustion and exasperation. Nearby, his father’s car skidded to a stop as the engine shut off. 

Billy snorted, a wide, toothy grin plastered on his lips, the happiest Steve had ever seen him. His heart burst at the sight, because Billy’s smile was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and he wanted to spend his whole life chasing that. _He didn’t want to die._ “You have shitty timing, Harrington.”

Steve attempted a chuckle, but it was in vain as his battered lungs seized with an overwhelming _will to live,_ because Billy deserved so much better, and he could only mutter, “yeah, tell me about it.”

Out of the muck running through his brain, one thought that never spent much time in Steve’s head was blinking front and center, like a tacky, neon bar sign - _I want to live._

Steve had changed. His perception changed - now, instead of seeing the world as someone waiting for it to end, he was seeing through the eyes of someone who wanted to live - someone who, despite the shit, wanted to see what tomorrow, and next month, and next year brought. 

He didn’t want to jump. Time for plan B, which was going to be considerably harder. 

Billy took a bold step forward, partially shielding Steve with a broad shoulder. His dad’s dress shoes scuffled the fresh snow as he walked, gait long and intimidating. As he grew closer, alcohol clinging to every step, Steve realized he was very drunk. He also saw the red on his pressed white shirt. 

His red. His blood.

“Steven Harrington!” Steve jumped, and Billy reached behind him blindly to grasp Steve’s hand. “And lookie who! Hargrove, in the flesh.” He growled the last word, stopping in front of the pair, who were silent.

“What, nothing to say now, Steven? Because you were saying a lot earlier, about your _buddy_ here.” Steve suppressed the shivers that skittered across his exposed arms and legs, gently pressing his injured elbow to Billy’s warm back.

“I raised you to be strong, Steven. Independent. I put resources and time and money into your upbringing. Countless hours were spent cultivating you to be the best person you could - in and out of school. And look where you ended up - in jail. At parties. Getting into fights with administrators at school. Bloody, standing on a ledge overlooking the quarry, obviously thinking about killing yourself.” A pause. “Homosexual.” He spat the last one, vile radiating from him. “I wanted-”

“No you didn’t.” He stepped around Billy, taking an emotionally-exhausted stab at courage. “You didn’t do shit for me. Who taught me how to ride a bike? Lorna. Who taught me how to read? Michelle. Who went to my first basketball game? Edith. And on, and on, and on. You’ve never been there for me,” his throat was painfully dry, and his bad eye kept leaking tears. “My nannies have. And they’ve cared more for me than you ever have. Family isn’t blood, dad. It’s not who’s in your family tree.” Steve clenched a fist. “It’s who I choose. And it is _definitely_ not you.”

His father’s eyes glossed over, crazy, and the knife he held in his hand gleamed off the headlights. “My patience is _thin,_ Steve, and we’re leaving Hawkins for good, away from this town and _these people._ Now, get your ass in my car or I’ll slice Hargrove’s fingers off, one by one.”

Steve inhaled sharply, Billy came up behind him, wordlessly, and Steve turned fearfully to meet his eyes. 

They were calm. They were trusting. 

His dad stepped closer, menacingly, and Steve knew there was no way he’d be able to fight him again, because he’d definitely lose and then Billy would be fingerless, and-

Billy’s arm brush against him, gently, reminding him he was there, _he wasn’t alone,_ just like he’d done in the basketball game championship, just like he’d done in the arcade when that snot-nosed punk crashed into his injured ribs, and Steve realized that when he was unhinged, falling to pieces, Billy was there, gently reminding him that he wasn’t in this _by himself._

Steve clenched his hands, the skin of his broken and missing fingernails burning against the touch.

“No.”

His father flashed his teeth, primal-like and moved closer to the boys again, but with each step, Steve clocked his trembling knees and jumpy eyes in the lowlight. He was injured too, or sore at the very least. Steve could put up a fight, buy them some time, long enough for a motherfucking _miracle_ to happen. He had to. He took a deep breath, steeled his nerves and moved his shoulders about, saw his dad raise the knife in his hand-

The 1980 Chevrolet Bronco came flying around the bend, tires skidding and gravel flying in a dramatic arc, dust and snow setting a badass background in a display of wonder. Sheriff Hopper jumped out, gun in hand, yelling.

“Harrington! Put your hands up, now!”

Whether Hopper was talking to him or his father, Steve didn’t know. He made an attempt to raise his arms, even a little, but his body was so worn and his elbow was completely jacked to shit. He couldn’t even move his limbs, and consequently, his knees gave out, not for the first time, and they hit the ever growing layer of snow covering. Billy’s hands shot out, but not fast enough, and the blonde man sank to his knees next to him, grasping at his thin basketball jersey, trying to find purchase, trying to do anything to help keep Steve’s weakening body upright.

“Jim Hopper, in the flesh. I haven’t seen you since you arrested my boy back in September.” Instead of following Hop’s instructions, the older Harrington man stood concrete in his spot, and open wound dripping blood off his hand and dotting the stark-white snow he was standing in.

“Harrington, you don’t want to do this.” Hopper ground out, gun aimed for him, safety removed.

Steve needed to do something, but he didn’t know what - it wasn’t like he wanted to defend his father, he hoped Hopper would put a bullet in between his eyes - but he’d caused all this and he wasn’t worth the drama, wasn’t worth the heartache that was inevitably going to come from this.

“Do what, Jim?” His arms swung wide, taunting, knife swinging around erratically. “I came out here to save my boy’s life - after all, he is a danger to himself and others.” His father smiled his award-winning, businessman smile. “Why else would he run to the quarry after the massive psychotic break he just had? Thrashing around my house, causing all this damage, couldn’t even see the glass he was stepping in.”

“Steve, you okay?” Hopper nodded his head to the two boys in the snow, ignoring Steve’s dad for just a moment. Steve couldn’t even raise his head to look at Sheriff Hopper, he was so fatigued, but he felt Billy jostle around him, and figured he must have spoken for them both.

“Don’t act coy,” Hopper spat, returning his attention to the man acting innocent in front of him. “I know you did this to him.” His knuckles were white on the gun held out in front of him.

“Yeah, well, that baseless accusation isn’t going to hold up in court, is it?”

Hopper took a couple of steps to the side, tossing his eyes back to the boys on the ground. “No, but money laundering will.”

Steve watched the color drain from his father’s face out of one good eye, and honestly, he was pretty surprised himself. His dad switched his weight from one foot to the other, defensively, brows furrowing angrily. He knew he’d been caught. “Why, you piece of-”

“We’ve been watching you for months, so you can put your act away.” 

Steve’s father threw his arms up in the air. “All this, for _him?"_ He jabbed a finger at Steve. “He isn’t good for anything except parties and sex and weed. He isn’t worth all this shit. But, you always wanted a son, Jim, remember? In college, you wanted a boy, but then you got that ratty little girl, and she didn’t stick around very long, did she-”

The gunshot rattled around in the quarry, the cavernous walls containing the water bounced the echo back and forth, rattling Steve’s eardrums. His father yelled and pitched forward, clutching his blown kneecap.

“You son of a bitch, Hopper, you’re a real piece of shit, you know that…,” and he dissolved into hollering sobs on the ground, curled into a ball, smacking his hand on the frosty ground repeatedly, as if he was trying to dispel the pain.

Steve breathed easily for the first time in a _long_ time and now focused on his father, being hoisted into the back of Hopper’s vehicle, Billy, and getting some warmth back into his frostbitten limbs.

xxx

He ended up in the hospital, delirious from blood loss and numb to the bone from shock. Billy went with him, stuck by his side the whole night, like glue. 

Robin shot him a look as he gazed out the small hospital room door window and down the hall at the pacing man, a knowing sort of look that Steve knew meant _she knew_ what he was feeling, even if he didn’t know himself. 

It was too early for anyone to be showing up, at 6:30 in the morning, but they did anyway. She had arrived about the same time Dustin and the gang did - cruising in on bikes and demanding the receptionist show them to Steve’s room immediately. El almost used her mind powers on an uncooperative nurse, but Max calmed her down.

Word in Hawkins traveled fast, regardless of time of day.

“Dustin, Hopper told me you had called him.” The younger boy hung his head, perched on his hands on the plastic blue chair next to the bed. With the IV and the array of cords hooked to Steve’s body, his doctor only permitted one visitor at a time, and it was Dustin’s turn.

“Well, you looked worried when we got to your house, and your parents aren’t the nicest, and-”

“Thank you, Dustin.” Dustin’s head flew up in surprise, hair flopping about. 

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad?” Steve questioned. “No, Dustin, you saved my life. When he got to my house, with the blood on the pavement and glass shards everywhere, my mom told him where my dad took off, and Hop found us - found me - just in time. Thank you buddy, I mean it.”

Dustin blushed and mumbled something about looking out for his best friend, and Steve smiled.

His therapist was next.

“Ron, you really didn’t need to come.”

“Ahh, of course I did. My favorite client is in the hospital? I’m there.” He smiled, teasingly. “You don’t look as bad as Hopper described on the telephone.”

“Yeah, well, I feel like shit.” His head fell, fingers twirling in a loose string on the blanket.

Ron smiled, a warm smile that made Steve feel at home. “This, for you Steve, is the beginning of the end. Your story and its wild, unforgiving plot has now reached a stationary period - your father is in jail for a long time, your mother has moved in with her sister in Pennsylvania, and you’ve got friends lining the hallway waiting to see you.”

Because, Steve realized, while he was completely derailing, losing himself and falling apart, he was also putting himself back together, in pieces that were a little mismatched, a little less of his father and a little more Billy - but fit him perfectly fine.

As Steve fondly looked out the window on the bed to his best friends, lined up on the hallway bench, chatting amongst themselves, Ron patted Steve’s knee on the bed. “I can’t predict the future, Steve Harrington, but I think the rest of your story will turn out to be just fine.”

And boy, oh boy, it did.

xxx

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling sad that this story was over, because I had so much fun writing it, but I failed to consider that there was a whole 'nother season of Stranger Things that I could cover? How do we feel about this same type of story and character relationships continued on to season 3? Thoughts? Let me know!


	15. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "First it hurt enough to kill him, but then it changed him enough to want to stay, and now, nothing in this world could convince him otherwise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did it! 
> 
> Thank you all for your continued support, comments and kudos. They really were the coal that kept this train going. 
> 
> Hopefully, all of you are satisfied with this ending. I know I was. These two really do deserve the world and more.
> 
> Love you all!
> 
> Also, if you want to know, I actually looked up all the dates I used in this story on a real calendar! So, the days actually correspond with the dates, according to the 1984 and 1985 12-month lunar calendars I found.

_ Thursday May 2, 1985 _

“So what now?”

The man looked over at him, a lazy smile on his face. “You tell me.”

“I’m graduating, Billy.”

“I know.”

  
  
“You have to finish high school.”

“Yeah.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “So how are we going to make this work?!”

The smile on Billy’s lips remained as his hand went from Steve’s knee, around his back, and to his hip, tugging him closer. The grass they were sitting on felt warm through Steve’s jeans, and the updraft from the quarry made Billy’s hair tickle his ear.

“Well, you’re gonna get a job, and I’m gonna try to survive another year of hell school, and we’re gonna be just fine.”

“We’re not the same people we used to be.”

“Yeah, thank fuck,” Billy guffawed. “I was an asshole to you. Now,” he grinned, burying his neck in Steve’s face. “I’m just an asshole to other people.”

Steve grinned, a real smile, one that wasn’t forced or uncomfortable. He felt an odd feeling, one totally foreign to him, settle in his gut, kind of like a tickle. 

It was trust.

After all that had happened, he’d finally be able to find peace - find trust again, in people. Good people, and places like the quarry.

The place that he’d tried to end it all had become a place of tranquility. 

He looked out over the pit, could see a sliver of water against the opposing wall, watched the spring sun shimmer off the cerulean ripples. His hair was warm from the shine, his hip from Billy’s hand, and his smile remained.

The scar on his hip that Billy rubbed gently was still there, a reminder of the ghost of his father, now off in Federal Prison on the West Coast, and his tender elbow joint still making a recovery didn’t bring back bad connotations anymore - it was proof of Steve’s resilience, Dr. Floss convinced him.

First it hurt enough to kill him, but then it changed him enough to want to stay, and now, nothing in this world could convince him otherwise.

“Hey, that reminds me.” Billy pulled away for a second, but before Steve could raise his eyes to look, a pair of black sunglasses slid across his eye line, making his vision darker with the tint. 

“My sunglasses,” Steve tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. 

“I mean, they are yours, pretty boy.” 

Steve laughed and kissed Billy as the new sensation of  _ being loved _ made a home in the creases of his face. 

“And,” Billy mumbled against his lips. “We still need a Pac-Man match.”

Steve’s insides tingled. He kissed Billy one more time, jumped up and took off to the camaro. “Race ya!”

Billy cursed behind him, stumbling to his feet. “Damn you, Harrington!”

And, as Steve ran, a wide smile splitting his healed face in half, green grass as far as the eye can see, his hands stopped shaking.

He laughed as his feet carried him to his seat in the camaro and to the happiness he’d waited for for eighteen years of his life.

The happiness he deserved.

xxx

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious, instead of this fluffy ending, I was going to end with this:
> 
> "Steve laughed and ran, but a misstep caused his body to tumble down, down, down into the warm blue water of the quarry and to his death.
> 
> Above, Billy screamed and jumped after him.
> 
> And the town of Hawkins had two funerals to attend to the following weekend, instead of the always-predicted Harrington one." 
> 
> Honestly, after 14 chapters of angst, I couldn't do that to any of you, or myself. That would be nearly criminal.


End file.
